Alessandro Scarlatti: Cantatas and Chamber Music

“There can be little doubt that Scarlatti's cantatas (reputedly more than 700) are consistently delightful...Rottsolk's voice is supple and stylish, and deals admirably with some very difficult technical arias...the performances are unflaggingly attractive and reveal one beautifully crafted aria after another.” --Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

“… a tantalizing taste of an area of repertoire largely denied to non-specialist record collectors and provides a splendid showcase for these eloquent and committed musicians.”  “…an interesting disc.” --International Record Review - May 2010

Clara Rottsolk (soprano)
Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players

The soprano Clara Rottsolk joins Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players for a disc of cantatas and instrumental music by Alessandro Scarlatti. Though his cantatas and operas are little known today Scarlatti was a titan in his time, closely associated with Rome’s Arcadian Academy and an inspiration to the much younger Handel, a frequent visitor to the Academy.

Scarlatti’s specialty was the cantata, the operatic equivalent of the short story, in which music and narrative are distilled to their core, resulting in beautiful and moving yet succinct multi-movement vocal works. Tempesta di Mare has programmed four rarely performed Scarlatti cantatas, the Quella pace gradita, Bella dama di nome Santa, Non sò qual più m’ingombra (Cantata Pastorale) and Bella, s’io t’amo alongside Concerto IX in A minor.

‘We chose these cantatas to show the range of things that Scarlatti does with one voice and a small complement of instruments’, says Gwyn Roberts, artistic co-director of Tempesta di Mare. The cantatas are complemented by a concerto. Scarlatti’s instrumental music, like the vocal music, is much more concerned with the intricate interweaving of voices and the subtle detail of line than it is with raw virtuosity. Concerto IX, which appears in a manuscript collection dated 1725 (the year of Scarlatti’s death) certainly bears this out. Scarlatti’s use of the recorder, both here and in the rest of the programme, reflects the recorder’s great popularity throughout most of Scarlatti’s career.

Read More

Passo di pena in pena

The cantata da camera genre enjoyed its Golden Era in the early eighteenth century in Italy, mainly in Rome, through the auspices of employers as Cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphiliij and the Marquis Ruspoli, who organized several Accademie in their homes, weekly meetings in which music, poetry and discussions about art or philosophy attracted the most important nobles of the city. The most distinguished of these Accademie saw the presence of the great composers of the time: the newcomer Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti, Gasparini, instrumentalists as Arcangelo Corelli and Domenico, the son of Alessandro Scarlatti ... The highlight of these meetings was the time of the performance of some cantate da camera by such great personalities.

The extraordinary artistic atmosphere that existed in the Accademie soon expanded to other cities in Italy and from there to the rest of Europe. Our recording aims to recreate the repertoire that was heard in these Accademie when the cantata genre had spread and had evolved, around 1730: from the wonderful style, nostalgic and always surprising of Alessandro Scarlatti to the lyricism of Bononcini, the glow and melodic treatment of the voice of Porpora or the rich sounds of Vivaldi, all seasoned with an instrumental Triosonata by Locatelli.

There are few occasions when a record producer has the great pleasure and honor to present a truly unique artist, as the Italian countertenor Flavio Ferri-Benedetti. In his recording debut, we fall in love with his beautiful voice, sensual, round and firm. He captures us with his wonderful way to say the text, to feel the emotions, with his perfectly - it could not be otherwise - shaped Italian. He gives each phrase, each word, its accurate meaning and draws from every note exactly what the listener wants to perceive, displaying an unusually brilliant technique. Flavio is joined in this extraordinary recording by the ensemble Il Profondo, a group specializing in the interpretation of the basso continuo, created by young musicians from different countries (Switzerland, France, Japan, Italy, Spain) formed in the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. They offer a colorful accompaniment, robust, sensitive to every nuance, attentive to detail, a pleasure to the ears. Surely, all those who buy this CD will agree that they have rarely had the pleasure of listening to a countertenor recording of this technical and artistic level. We believe it will become a benchmark in the early music discography.

Read More