Serenate a Filli Roma, 1706

Recorded in Saint-Michel en Thiérache June 2010

By the time that Alessandro Scarlatti was writing the two serenatas recorded here by Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza and inaugurating an exciting new series on Glossa, that celebratory cantata form, often employing allegorical characters, had been in existence for a mere half century. Scarlatti, as Bonizzoni says, "was one of the main sources of inspiration for Handel whilst the latter was in Italy, and this creates a real continuity with what we have been doing in the recent past"; notably the much-admired septet of recordings devoted to the Saxon composers Italian chamber cantatas. That sense of continuity extends to the fact that the two works on this new disc - Serenata a Filli and Le muse Urania e Clio lodano le bellezze di Filli - were written in Rome in 1706 and probably for the same patron in Francesco Maria Ruspoli who furthered Handel's own career. Fresh from his harpsichord recording of Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge, Fabio Bonizzoni now, with the subtle and stylish instrumentalists of La Risonanza, is not only choosing to illuminate an unexplored genre on record, but is also shedding light on an unknown facet of Alessandro Scarlatti's own prodigious output. Here, the serenatas are given dramatic vitality by regular partners in Bonizzoni's artistry: sopranos Emanuela Galli and Yetzabel Arias Fernández and countertenor Martín Oro. As well as the elder Scarlatti producing examples of these courtly 'dramatic cantatas' future releases on this new series will demonstrate the quality of the contributions in the serenata form by Handel himself and also by Antonio Vivaldi.