La Serenissima / Adrian Chandler / Tabea Debus SETTECENTO

 

SETTECENTO

 

Xavier Sabata / Vespres d'Arnadí / Dani Espasa L'ALESSANDRO AMANTE

The irresistible and warm voice of counter-tenor Xavier Sabata never ends to bewitch us in his new medley of jubilant baroque arias. Alexander The Great inspired him the theme his new album: Porpora, Händel, Bononcini and many other composers were seduced by this character who mingled the strength of the Emperor and the sensibility of a man.

Xavier Sabata focuses on that multifaceted feeling that keeps nourishing music, especially baroque opera. With the Spanish conductor Dani Espasa and his ensemble Vespres d’Arnadí, the singer performs a tailor-made programme: the new exciting chapter of a unique voice and a fascinating artist.

Nuria Rial / Maurice Steger / Kammerorchester Basel BAROQUE TWITTER

During his travels in Italy in 1739–40, the French scholar Charles de Brosses wrote the following: “The Italians want arias of all kinds imaginable, to con- vey all the many and varied images that music can portray.” There was so- mething in what he said – the Baroque aria is the ideal place to find the most emblematic images of the age. Birdsong was the most perfect form of sin- ging, so why not try to mirror it in music for the human voice? The poetic and musical vocabulary of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century arias was rich in avian life: eagles, swans, turtle-doves and nightingales – among other birds or winged divinities – were used as messengers of love or unutterable tor- ment, or as a metaphors for every possible state of mind (in so-called “simi- le arias”). Another characteristic of ornithologically influenced arias was the presence of a solo instrument whose role was on a par with that of the sin- ger. The selection of birdsong-inspired works included here, for flautino or flauto dolce (sopranino and descant recorders) and soprano, conjure a range of emotions conveyed by a variety of winged messengers. Arias from operas and serenatas, composed between around 1700 and 1740, are interleaved with a selection of instrumental works for the same forces.

Baroque Twitter offers listeners an exiting journey into the world of early 18th -century Baroque poetry and music, a world filled with musical variety and soloistic brilliance.

Together with the Kammerorchester Basel, Nuria Rial and Maurice Steger have recorded an album of Baroque arias and concertos inspired by birdsong and Twitter. In their search for works they have discovered some dazzling jewels, some well known, others previously unrecorded: dreamily playful arias about love, infatuation and the beauties of nature.

La Ritirata / Josetxu Obregón NEAPOLITAN CONCERTOS FOR VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS

The Neapolitan Baroque, especially in the first half of the eighteenth century, was a vibrant and vital time for instrumental music, as Josetxu Obregón and La Ritirata now demonstrate with their new recording of six concertos from that era. The Neapolitan school – which owed so much in its formation to Francesco Provenzale – flourished in the hands of Francesco Mancini, Nicola Porpora, Nicola Fiorenza, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Alessandro Scarlatti, all represented with concertos on this new Glossa recording. 

The four major conservatories in the city created an astonishingly productive and innovative environment for musicians – students and their teachers alike. The composers here all studied or worked in the conservatories or at the Cappella Real. The Neapolitan concerto had its own structure at this time, which was quite different to that found in the Venice of Vivaldi, and there was a constant competitive spirit for soloists to demonstrate their virtuosity. 

As they showed with their earlier Glossa recording of Il Spiritillo Brando , the members of La Ritirata are more than a match for their Neapolitan predecessors in both stylishness and technique. The soloists gathered by Josetxu Obregón represent some of the leading musical lights in Spain today: violinist Hiro Kurosaki (in a Fiorenza concerto), recorder-player Tamar Lalo (Scarlatti and Mancini) , harpsichordists Ignacio Prego and Daniel Oyarzabal (Pergolesi) and not least, Obregón himself who is the cello soloist in works by Fiorenza and Porpora. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / I Turchini / Antonio Florio I VIAGGI DI FAUSTINA

I Viaggi di Faustina is part of a series from Spain's Glossa label, with each album examining the legacy of a singer from the 18th century, re-creating the repertory sung and even the sound of the voice insofar as such a thing is possible. The title I Viaggi di Faustina refers to Faustina Bordoni, the Neapolitan singer who became famous for her onstage brawl with her rival Francesca Cuzzoni, shrewdly egged on by Handel's promoters in London. But her career was centered on Naples, where she married German-born composer Johann Adolf Hasse; the "viaggi" here are trips both to and from Naples, and the music consists of excerpts from operas she is known to have sung. A similar album by American mezzo soprano Vivica Genaux brings Handel into the mix, but Italian mezzo Roberta Invernizzi sticks with Italian composers, and the scale of the music, more delicate than fiery, is suited to her voice. The music blooms into high notes only occasionally, but it demands agility and finesse, according well with contemporary descriptions of Bordoni's own voice. And Invernizzi is sympathetic to the music, which includes no killer Handelian tunes but has plenty of charm. The program is mostly by three composers, two known only to Baroque and Classical opera enthusiasts, Leonardo Vinci and Nicola Porpora (the latter Haydn's teacher), and one Neapolitan local unknown to all but serious specialists, Francesco Mancini. The fact that the Mancini pieces are perhaps the most charming of all will recommend this album automatically to anyone with an interest in the period. It all comes together in a piece like "Canta e de caro usignolo," from Mancini's opera Traiano, a night piece that shows off the smooth sound of the Baroque orchestra I Turchini under Antonio Florio to great advantage. A worthwhile addition to any library of Baroque opera and a pleasant foretaste of delights to come in Glossa's series. (James Manheim)

Sonya Yoncheva / Karine Deshayes / Ensemble Amarillis PERGOLESI Stabat Mater

A rapidly rising star on today’s opera scene, Sonya Yoncheva appears in this album alongside ‘Lyric Artist of the Year’ winner Karine Deshayes in a masterwork of the sacred music repertoire; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Yoncheva has performed on various stages worldwide, most recently in France where she astonished the audience with her performance in both Verdi's La Traviata & Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, and in Montpellier where she sang at the Radio France International Music Festival. ""Her voice is gorgeous to listen to. It is always used with penetrating intelligence and supple musicality."" (The Times) This recording also features the Ensemble Amarillis on period instruments. Founded in 1994, the Ensemble Amarillis is one of Europe’s most original Baroque ensembles. “The Ensemble Amarillis responds with mercurial temperaments, from sublimely intimate to brazenly flamboyant. (BBC Music Magazine).

“Sonya Yoncheva brings to her lines a fragile sensitivity that astonished me, given the power of her voice…the Ensemble Amarillis plays with great charm. To accompany Pergolesi it has dug up little-known chamber works by Francesco Mancini and Francesco Durante. Héloïse Gaillard, a recorder star in her own right, leads fizzy fioritura in the Mancini as boldly as she does strict counterpoint in the Durante” (BBC Music Magazine, February 2017)

“Mancini’s Sonata in G minor, really a recorder concerto in all but name, is played with sensitive shaping and agility by Héloïse Gaillard, and Durante’s Concerto grosso in F minor shows Ensemble Amarillis on compelling form” (Gramophone Magazine, January 2017)

“Deshayes may have vibrato rather wider than standard period-instrument issue but her ornaments and sense of style are impeccable. Yoncheva, a rising star at Covent Garden and elsewhere, is even more impressive. Her honeyed soprano timbre is beautifully tuned and focused.” (The Times, 18th November 2016)

Baccano BELLA NAPOLI

Naples has always been one of the musical metropolises of Italy, but it became especially important in the first half of the 18th century. Many composers were active in the city, in particular in the realm of opera, and a number of them were also teachers at the various conservatoires. In particular in the 1730s the Neapolitan style began to disseminate across Italy, and even beyond the Italian borders. Some of the best castratos were pupils of one of Naples' most famous composers, Nicola Porpora. One of them was Farinelli, who scored triumphs all over Europe.
This disc brings a programme of music by composers from Naples, although probably not every single piece was composed in Naples. Nicola Porpora and Francesco Mancini were mainly known as composers of music for the theatre, but are represented here with instrumental pieces. It can hardly surprise that these show the traces of their activities in the theatre. In Mancini's Sonata IV this is somewhat limited, especially because of the relatively small dynamic range of the recorder. The opening movement is the most dramatic, consisting of two contrasting sections: a lively spiritoso suddenly shifting into a largo. It doesn't quite come off here. Otherwise the playing is fine, in particular rhythmically. The closing movement is an allegro spiccato - in the baroque era the term 'spiccato' is synonymous with 'staccato'.
In comparison Porpora's Sonata in F is more dramatic, and the cello's wider dynamic range is fully explored. The first allegro is particularly well played, with strong dynamic accents. The following adagio shows a great amount of expression, and the sonata ends with a more relaxed allegro non presto, in a nice dancing rhythm. Domenico Scarlatti hasn't written many pieces for an instrumental ensemble. Here his Sonata for violin and bc in G is played, strangely enough catalogued by Kirkpatrick among the keyboard sonatas. It comprises two expressive graves, which are beautifully played by Mervi Kinnarinen. The two allegros have an infectious rhythmic pulse which is underlined by dynamic accents on the good notes.
Domenico Scarlatti also composed many chamber cantatas, and this part of his oeuvre gets little attention. I wasn't able to find out when No, non fuggire o Nice was written. In the liner-notes for another disc it is suggested that the cantata could have been written for the above-mentioned Farinelli who was in Spain when Domenico was also working there. The cantata consists of two recitative-aria pairs. The second aria in particular has a dramatic character, which Tuuli Lindeberg explores well. She colours her voice nicely, and her lower register is remarkably strong. The delivery is also good, and she takes some liberties in the recitatives. Some words could have been given a little more weight, though. That is also the case in the cantata by Domenico's father Alessandro. It is bad fortune that only last year another disc was released with this same cantata. This was by Clara Rottsolk and the Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players. Ms Rottsolk gives more expression to the text in the recitatives, but the instrumentalists accompanying her are sometimes a little too restrained. That is certainly not the case here: the instrumental parts are executed with theatrical flair. The scoring is rather unusual: recorder, violin, cello and bc. The cantata opens with a sinfonia with two andante sections in which the ensemble is divided: recorder and bc versus violin and cello. There is some good text expression in the first aria, and the lyricism of the second comes off well in Ms Lindeberg's performance.
Lastly the only unknown composer of the programme: Giuseppe Porsile. His first appointment was as vicemaestro di cappella of the Spanish chapel in Naples, but in 1695 he was asked by Charles II to organise the music chapel in Barcelona. He served Charles' successor Charles III, and followed him to Vienna in 1711, when he was crowned emperor. There Porsile remained, composing many operas and oratorios. It is not very likely that Porsile's cantata performed here was composed in Naples. E già tre volte is scored for soprano, recorder and bc, and the two soloists blend perfectly. The first aria is especially expressive, with some chromaticism in the vocal part and the basso continuo, inspired by the text: "My harsh fate seems to pity me for my unhappiness".
Baccano is a Finnish early music ensemble which was founded in 2003. As far as I know this is their first commercial recording, and it is a very fine one. I am impressed by both the technical skills of the individual artists as well as their approach to the music. Their performances are lively and energetic, and the interpretation is well-considered. This is definitely a group to follow and I look forward to their next recordings. (Johan van Veen, MusicWeb International)