An Italian Portrait / Cantates Italiennes

Description

Between 1706 and 1710, a young George Friedric Handel undertook a long journey through Italy that would prove transformative. Immersed in the most sophisticated musical culture of his time, he composed prolifically a wealth of secular cantatas that rank among the most intimate and emotionally profound works of his entire career. An Italian Portrait brings together five of these cantatas in what is likely their first complete recording with countertenor. Heard through the prism of the male voice, these pieces take on a new brightness, the poetry of unrequited love and inner conflict tinged with a timbre as distinctive as the works themselves are remarkable. Countertenor Gabriel Díaz is accompanied by harpsichordist Alfonso Sebastián and baroque cellist Fernando Santiago in a performance recorded in the resonant splendor of the Iglesia de San Miguel de Daroca, Zaragoza.