Era: Baroque
Year: 1712 for Trillo Del Diavolo
Form: Multiple
Score: 84
Thoughts: I don't really have the energy to say more than I liked it but it wasn't amazing. I will quote some stuff on why this piece is culturally significant though. There's way more to it than Trillo Del Diavolo and it was all good but not great.
Yes it is starting out calm, but it also has some serious intrigue and serious tension. Not only the use of tritones, but also trills and "devilish music". For it's time and even today it's very difficult to play and rather inspired music.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1712 (and more)
Form: Religious stuff with things (probably Mass could incorporate all these works... dunno... ttc)
Score: 84
Thoughts: All great stuff. I read somewhere that Vivaldi mostly did secular music, and this stuff was unique for his blahbliddieblah. Anyway, I didn't love any of this, but never thought any of it was less solid.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1711
Form: The first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage
Score: 85
Thoughts: A quite lively performance both in orchestration and in vocal performance. Opera can sometimes musically be a drab because it's telling a story and unless you are following along, the music doesn't match anything intriguing, etc. A crusade love story really isn't my jive, but it still is music on par (and often in the style of) his Royal Fireworks, etc. I will have to admit that 3 hours was quite the ordeal, especially during the recitatives, but these were easily the best musical recitatives I've heard, so it was still top notch... just lost interest ever so often with the length... having said that this was a first listen and the orchestration and stuff with things really is top notch.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1711
Form: Concerto
Score: 84
Thoughts: Perfectly nice concertos... great music to have in the background, yet quality enough to listen to intently, yet has nothing incredibly powerful to it.
Thoughts: Perfectly nice concertos... great music to have in the background, yet quality enough to listen to intently, yet has nothing incredibly powerful to it.
Antonio did a lot of that. I like it all, but could never endeavor to be a Vivaldi completist, and it doesn't always seem to matter shich set(s) i choose as many do seem rather interchangeable.
Thoughts: Perfectly nice concertos... great music to have in the background, yet quality enough to listen to intently, yet has nothing incredibly powerful to it.
Antonio did a lot of that. I like it all, but could never endeavor to be a Vivaldi completist, and it doesn't always seem to matter shich set(s) i choose as many do seem rather interchangeable.
Yeah I can see that. So far it's been a 50/50 experience for me. 50% of the time my mind is blown and 50% of the time it's meh. I could say that about other great composers too though... so not sure what to think about it.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1700
Form: Cantata
Score: 82
Thoughts: The Italian masters... it's clear these guys helped build the foundation from Renaissance ideas to mastering the Baroque sound. Dude is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. Having said that I wasn't really crazy about any of this.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1700
Form: Cantatas and Motets
Score: 82
Thoughts: Bananas... just bananas.
From Archivmusic.com
Quote:
Led by Gerard Lesne's smoothly controlled, rich countertenor voice, Il Seminario Musicale is making a pleasing habit of dipping into unfamiliar regions of the baroque repertory.
The Venetian composer Antonio Caldara has not fared well in the history of recorded sound. The reason must be current fashion as much as anything for this contemporary of Vivaldi wrote a prodigious amount of music, mainly for the voice but also for instruments. This new disc from Virgin Classics offers a glimpse of Caldara's chamber music with four cantatas and two sonatas from his published Op. 1(1693) and Op. 2 (1699). Three or the cantatas belong to the early part of Caldara's life and more specifically to his years in Rome between 1709 and 1716. The remaining cantata, Vicino a un rivoletto, was apparently written in Vienna in 1729.
The most impressive of the cantatas, all of which follow the customary alternating pattern of recitative and aria, is Medea in Corinto which the author of the booklet note suggests Caldara may have written for his wife, a gifted contralto. It begins with a three-movement sinfonia for two violins and continuo followed by three recitative-aria sequences. The text picks up the famous legend at the point at which Medea realizes that Jason intends to abandon her; and it follows through to the moment when she summons the Furies to assist her in her revenge. Caldara colours the text vividly, effectively contrasting the moods of the Sorceress in the arias and enlivening the narrative with some splendidly declamatory recitative, the last section of which is menacingly accompanied by the strings. It is a powerful, tautly constructed piece which makes one long to hear more.
The remaining cantatas, though attractive, are more modest in intent and more conventional in their lovelorn Arcadian surroundings. The trio sonatas, too, are modest, keeping more closely to the Corellian model than similar pieces by Vivaldi, for instance. Gerard Lesne's singing of the cantatas is admirable. His intonation is dependable and he has a fluent stylistic sense. No less important though, is his ability to bring strong characterization to bear on a given predicament and, above all in Medea this is superbly done. His ensemble II Seminario Musicale is a lively group which complements Lesne effectively while also giving a graceful account of the sonatas. Texts are provided in full with translations and the recording is spacious and sympathetic. Recommended.
-- Gramophone [11/1991]
reviewing the original release of disc 1, Virgin 91479
I cannot help feeling that Alessandro Stradella is possibly still one of the major unexplored talents of baroque music. I say this, not because I personally know of piles of forgotten masterpieces by him, but simply because when there is so much of his music that has not been recorded or made available in modern editions, and when what one does get to hear suggests so much talent (the powerful oratorio San Giovanni Ba/usia, for instance), it makes you wonder just what else there might be waiting to be discovered.
The sadly small portion of the current catalogue devoted to Stradella receives a helpful boost with this recording, which offers five motets for one or two voices with small, single-string ensemble. From these we can see that one thing Stradella certainly was not was formulaic, for each work is constructed very much on its own terms, from the sustained nobility of Crocifissione e Morte di Nostro Signore Gesu Cristo (ending, intriguingly, on the dominant) to the alternating lively recitatives and sinuous twopart writing of Benedictus dominus Deus, and from the virtuoso vocal delights of O vos omnes qui transits to the dignified syllabic setting of the Lamentatione per il Mercoledi Santo (so like Charpentier or Couperin in its austere expressiveness).
Il Seminario Musicale are persuasive interpreters as usual. Led by Gerard Lesne's smoothly controlled, rich countertenor voice, they relish Stradella's more anguished harmonies and summon up plenty of energy when the going gets more lively. Sandrine Piau's dark soprano is a good complement to Lesne and, as in their earlier recordings, the instrumental ensemble (bolstered by the unusual inclusion of a double-bass) produces a satisfyingly weighty sound. Il Seminario Musicale are making a pleasing habit of dipping into unfamiliar regions of the baroque solo motet and cantata repertory; this is my favourite disc yet.
-- Gramophone [4/1996]
reviewing the original release of disc 2, Virgin 45175
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