Cantates italiennes et concertos

Description

During his twelve years as "Hofkapellmeister" in Dresden, Heinichen composed pieces for Catholic Church services at court, serenades for court festivities, an opera, and a large quantity of concertos and chamber music. Additionally, he composed a whole series of secular cantatas in Italian for one or two voices with continuo. Four of these cantatas are featured in our recording. They transport the listener to a mythical Arcadia populated by nymphs and shepherds as graceful and innocent as Clori and Tirsi. They could live carefree if it weren't for the bittersweet pains of love - an inexhaustible subject constantly revisited by Italian poets in vivid and melodic verses. Heinichen sets them to music in the common forms of opera - the recitative and the aria, most often arranged in da capo. He enjoys resting the vocal parts, sometimes cantabile, sometimes virtuosic, on colorful orchestrations in which the woodwinds bring a bucolic touch.