A Scarlatti reviews
Settecento
Tabea Debus (recorder); La Serenissima/Adrian Chandler (Signum Classics)
A Scarlatti: Il Martirio di Santa Teodosia
Les Accents/Thibault Noally, et al (Aparté)
Scarlatti: Arianna
Kate Lindsey (mezzo-soprano); Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen (Alpha Classics)
The myth of Ariadne brought to life in Baroque cantatas
‘Kate Lindsey adds muscle to her lofty and dignified arias'
A Scarlatti: Il Primo Omicidio
Graciela Oddone, Dorothea Röschmann, Bernarda Fink, René Jacobs, Richard Croft, Antonio Abete; Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi)
Toccata: works for harp by Paradies, Rota, A Scarlatti et al
Elisa Netzer (Naxos)
Facce d'amore
Jakub Józef Orliński (countertenor); Il Pomo d’oro/Maxim Emelyanychev (Erato)
A Scarlatti's La Gloria di Primavera Performed by the Philharmonia Chorale
To celebrate his 30 years with Philharmonia Baroque, Nicholas McGegan presents a score last performed three centuries ago – fittingly enough, as a birthday celebration. Alessandro Scarlatti’s allegorical serenata La gloria di primavera marked the birth of a long-awaited heir to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, but as the infant died just two months later, the work has remained silent ever since. Its libretto personifies the four Seasons who bicker over their respective importance – Spring inevitably triumphing, since the imperial child was born in April.
A Scarlatti: Concerti Grossi Nos 1-6
These ‘Concertos in Seven Parts’ were published in London in about 1740, some 15 years after Alessandro Scarlatti’s death. Charles Burney thought them severe, though he liked their fugal content. The ‘seven parts’ of the title do not refer to real parts, of which there are only four, but are an approximate indication of the number of instruments required in performance.
A Scarlatti: Bella madre de’ fiori – Cantatas
Three chamber cantatas, including the finest Correa nel seno amato, its opening an outpouring of rare intensity and sustained despair. Tweaking tone controls softened a tungsten edge to Kiehr at full voice. George Pratt
A Scarlatti: Magnificat; Dixit dominus; Madrigali
With over 60 operas and 600 cantatas to his name, it’s no surprise that Alessandro Scarlatti has been dubbed ‘the founder of Neapolitan opera’. His sacred music, too, is steeped in the modern style, spectacularly displayed in Nicholas McGegan’s recent Cecilian Vespers SACD (Avie 0048). But also hidden within Scarlatti’s work-list is a little collection of pieces, sacred and secular, which reveal him to be as fluent in old-fashioned polyphony as in mid-Baroque solo virtuosity.
Caldara, A Scarlatti, Vivaldi & Zelenka
This disc is foremost an attractively dressed shop window for the accomplished Canadian countertenor Matthew White. But his contributions are sensibly interspersed with instrumental pieces, three of which belong to the works from which White’s arias have been drawn. The fourth, a Concerto for ripieno strings by Vivaldi (RV 114) is the only free-standing instrumental item. It is among the most invigorating of the composer’s concerti a quattro with a dynamic opening movement characterised by dotted rhythms and a concluding one in the form of an alluring chaconne.
A Scarlatti: Oratorio per la santissima trinitÃ
This is a real find – on the face of it simply an old-fashioned disputation, ‘Faithlessness’ setting up doctrinal conundrums for three sophists, ‘Faith’, ‘Divine Love’ and ‘Theology’, to resolve, aided by the unconfutable power of ‘Time’. The conventional recitative/aria formula is mainly of soloists, enriched by four duets and an astonishing ensemble finale of five distinctive characters (when ‘Faithlessness’ gets his come-uppance).
A Scarlatti: CDixit Dominus; Laudate pueri; Laetatus sum; Salve Regina
This collection of Cecilian Vespers represents Scarlatti’s music for the celebration of St Cecilia’s Day 1721 in the Roman church of Santa Maria di Trastevere. Until recently some of the music for the occasion was thought lost, so this premiere recording makes an important contribution to our knowledge of Scarlatti’s output. Although the music was intended for a liturgical context, Scarlatti knew well that drama and virtuosity were essential ingredients on such a major feast day.
Pergolesi, A Scarlatti
This pairing of two settings of the Stabat mater by two of Italy’s most renowned composers, albeit from different generations, might seem an obvious one. But Alessandro Scarlatti’s setting is a work that almost since it was written has been shrouded in obscurity. The current catalogue lists only one other recording, on the Hungaroton label, and it seems that the work is still not readily available in a modern edition – Rinaldo Alessandrini, director of the superb Concerto Italiano, has had to turn to an early manuscript, not an autograph, in Florence.
A Scarlatti/Corelli
‘The Lord is my shepherd’, saith the Psalm; and Jesu, of course, his holy lamb. No wonder that shepherds, not kings, hold highest place in our Christmas affections. Is it not, after all, in memory of the socks they washed by night that children still hang out their stockings on Christmas Eve? In Anglican circles, those shepherds and their ‘socks’ have always been held in especially high regard: between its first publication in 1700 and the advent, almost a century later, of Charles Wesley’s ‘Hark!
Handel, Mancini, Bononcini, Conti, A Scarlatti
Since the best chair for a harpsichord listener is in the next room, recordings provide an easy alternative without offending the performer. Although these new issues enshrine performances of cerebral and digital brilliance, some listeners may find that the presence of Kirckman instruments (1766 on Collins; 1769 on Herald) almost overwhelms Handel and Haydn. A more spacious acoustic in league with omni-directional microphones would have helped considerably.
A Scarlatti: Cantatas
Following the repression of opera in late 17th-century Italy, composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti produced musical spectacles built on Classical principles with Nature and Love as central dramatic elements. Sandrine Piau (soprano), Gérard Lesne (alto) and Il Seminario Musicale here reveal Scarlatti’s flair for this genre with performances that achieve a satisfying expressive equilibrium between words and music. They evoke with eloquence the bitter-sweet emotions of the plaintive Questo silenzio ombroso and tragic E pur vuole il cielo e amore.
A Scarlatti: Cain overo Il primo omicidio
The many people who delighted in René Jacobs’s superb 1996 recording of Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo will surely welcome this new release. Il primo omicidio, like Maddalena, is a religious oratorio composed in Venice in the early 1700s and Scarlatti, like Caldara, gives voice to opposing moral counsels in a series of beguiling solo arias. But whereas Maddalena dramatised interior dialogues within the soul, Il primo omicidio narrates Cain’s murder of Abel by means of characters (Cain, Abel, Adam, Eve) and external voices (God, Lucifer).
Corelli, Marais, Vivaldi, A Scarlatti, CPE Bach & Geminiani
Originally a wild Portuguese dance over a recurring harmonic template, La folia (‘insanity’) was slower, more dignified, by the later 17th century. But it still challenged innumerable composers’ ingenuity in varying textures and figurations over its hypnotically predictable bass. Hyperion has ingeniously collated examples from six 1986/87 CDs.
A Scarlatti, Bach, Pachelbel, Böddecker & Corelli
This sequence of Baroque music for the festive season includes familiar favourites like Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, Pachelbel’s Canon and the so-called ‘Air on the G string’ by Bach, alongside more obscure works – among them a charming miniature by one Philipp Friedrich Böddecker, and two more substantial, intricate cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti, complete with imitations of bagpipe drones and other pastoral piping. Emma Kirkby and London Baroque have enjoyed a long working partnership and this disc shows their evident musical rapport.
Handel, A Scarlatti
Two formerly separate releases of chamber cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti and Handel have been united for this excellent reissue. Lesne is one of the most expressive countertenors of his generation and his even shift from falsetto to chest voice is but one feature of his secure vocal technique. Accomplished performances of Handel’s chamber cantatas are not all that plentiful so this clutch of four, including the dramatic La Lucrezia, though here a little underpowered, is all the more welcome. Lesne is joined by soprano Sandrine Piau in the Scarlatti programme.
A Scarlatti: Cantatas, Vol. 3
Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a huge number of chamber cantatas – about 600, in fact – most of which are, like the five delightful examples on this disc, for solo voice. These ones are sung by countertenor Brian Asawa with stylish support from members of the Arcadian Academy, who provide varying types of accompaniment, sometimes with continuo alone, at other times with a larger instrumental colloquium. Only one of the five cantatas here, Clori vezzosa, e bella, is written for voice and basso continuo throughout, the others calling for two violins and, on occasion, viola.
A Scarlatti: Stabat mater in A minor; Salve regina; Quae est ista
Alessandro Scarlatti’s Stabat mater in A minor, one of at least five he is known to have composed, may be smaller in scale than his son Domenico’s better-known setting, but it is no less significant. Written for just two voices (compared with Domenico’s ten), two violins, continuo (harpsichord and cello on this recording), it has a depth, a volume and a majesty far beyond what you would expect from such modest forces.