Philippe Jaroussky / Artaserse LA VANITÀ DEL MONDO

 

LA VANITÀ DEL MONDO

 

Lucy Crowe / Mary Bevan / London Early Opera / Bridget Cunningham HANDEL'S QUEENS

Handel’s Queens features some of the most exquisite pieces of music written by G.F. Handel and his contemporaries for the two finest singers of the eighteenth century, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. Often wrongfully framed as rivals, these dazzling new recordings with Mary Bevan and Lucy Crowe reveal the distinctive yet versatile talent of the Italian vocalists. 

Conductor Bridget Cunningham continues her research and created Handel’s Queens and directs London Early Opera from the harpsichord. Handel’s Queens – as part of this important series serves as a further example of Cunningham’s dedication to imaginative programming and outstanding period performance on this double CD placing her at the forefront of baroque research and recording.

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.