Italian Cantatas Volume 5 - Rome (1707)

MARBECKS STAFF PICK: CD OF THE YEAR 2009

Gramophone Magazine: Editor's Choice - June 2009

"This recording would have benefited from having three female voices more sharply differentiated in character, but the performance keeps the slender plot buoyed up." Daily Telegraph, 4th March 2009

"The performance here is one of smouldering sensuality. The verve of the director's gestures generates huge excitement, while the sharp contrast of colours between each singer's voice - the translucence of Roberta Invernezzi, lustre of Yetzabel Fernández, and darkness of Romina Basso - enriches the tapestry of sound. Vocalists match passion with gorgeous ornamentation..." BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 *****

"…Bonizzoni has the admirable knack of conveying the strong rhetorical elements in Handel's vivacious music, and the entire performance is beautifully executed with subtlety and charm." Gramophone Magazine, June 2009

In May 1707 George Frideric Handel entered into the service of the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, and under his protection, embarked upon a tremendous career.As well as making a name for himself as a spectacular virtuoso on the harpsichord and organ, through his plentiful concerts in the Roman academies, Handel lost no time in also becoming a highly sought-after composer through his felicitous and apparently inexhaustible inspiration. In addition to a significant number of cantatas for solo voice and basso continuo, Handel also involved himself in composing cantatas for larger numbers of voices, combining these with a large supporting orchestral group. The score of Clori,Tirsi e Fileno is certainly a complex one, as much for its dramatic plotline as for its individually-chosen musical options: the result is a genuine opera in miniature, equipped with real refinement and lightness. Consequently, Clori,Tirsi e Fileno turns into an authentic laboratory in which Handel experiments with the most diverse musical and dramatic forms, obtaining by this method a capacity to elaborate that special language which was to locate it firmly within the glories of the theatre, from the past and the present. Extended interview with Fabio Bonizzoni on Glossa's new website: glossamusic.com

"Fabio Bonizzoni ensures that the performances crackle with dramatic tension or plumb the depths of desolate melodic melancholy according to what Handel's music demands, but the most impressive aspect of these performances is the conductor's awareness of story-telling and judicious moulding of the musical flow. ..further testament to the marvellous subtlety and richness of Handel's Roman music and contains Handel-singing, playing and direction of the absolute highest order…This lovingly prepared series promises to be of the utmost importance to Handel lovers." Gramophone