Cantatas & Concertos

Description

The excellent Kammerochester Basel (see their Haydn Sinfonies under the direction of Giovanni Antonini and previous DHM albums) presents a new album of wonderful baroque music. It features relatively unknown composers from the famous music school of Bologna: you may know Giuseppe Torelli (1658 - 1709), known for his trumpet concertos. In contrast, Giacomo Antonio Perti (1661 - 1756), Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1637 - 1695), and Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (c. 1653 - 1723) are largely forgotten, although they were renowned composers in their time and produced significant collections of works.
The album contains four instrumental concerti grossi by Giuseppe Torelli, who was born in Venice but lived in Bologna from 1684 and studied with Perti. All these concertos are an excellent mix of energetic and relaxed movements. They are perfectly combined with pieces in which the Catalan baroque soprano Nuria Rial lets her amazing voice shine.
The vocal pieces are all connected by their content, the texts repeatedly using "aerial" imagery and metaphors. The aria "Pensieri vaganti" by Colonna tells the story of a tormented lover whose anxious thoughts find no peace. The magnificent "Cantata per San Tomaso d'Aquino" by Perti imagines angels descending from heaven to save men. The motet "Aurae sacrae amati ardores" by Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (c. 1653-1723), a meditation on the feeling of awe experienced in sacred places, is completely unknown.
A magnificent and colorful recording of instrumental and vocal music from Bologna, an important musical center of 17th century Italy!