Release Date: 01 January 2010
Label: Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Brilliant Case (Jewel Case size, Holds 2 CDs)
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 034571177717
Composer/Series: Le Disgrazie D'amore
Description
Ecco a darvi diletto
Amor, ch’è sì stimato,
Or schernito, oltraggiato
Co’ le disgrazie sue porge il soggetto
A i vaghi scherzi miei.
De’ favolosi Dei
Altre volte lo scherno anche s’udì.
So, for your enjoyment,
Love, who is so esteemed,
now ridiculed, insulted,
with his mishaps will provide the theme
for my delightful jests.
Even the fabled Gods
were ridiculed in olden times.
A delightful blend of slapstick and highly allusive banter, Cesti’s comic moral opera mocks the pagan gods and the morally reprehensible excesses caused by amorous passion.
Pietro Antonio Cesti (born in Arezzo, 1623; died in Florence, 1669) was, along with Francesco Cavalli, the most illustrious representative of the seventeenth-century Venetian school of opera composers. Like many Seicento artists, he had an eventful life embracing multiple activities, as singer, actor, composer and maestro di cappella; like Vivaldi he took holy orders; and, like the murdered Stradella, he died in murky circumstances (probably by poisoning) after an outstanding musical career. He was an itinerant composer, dividing his activity between Venice and the courts of Florence, Vienna and Innsbruck. The work recorded here dates from his period at the Viennese court, and the opera is characteristic of Viennese opera’s synthesis between the comical, parodic register typical of the Venetian aesthetic (of which Cavalli’s La Calisto is a remarkable example) and the moral, edifying dimension inherent to court opera.
Tracklisting
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Laurence Perkins
Takacs Quartet, Marc-Andre Hamelin
English National Opera Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Steven Osborne
Stephen Hough, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
Steven Isserlis, Philharmonia Orchestra / Paavo Jarvi
Alexandra Papastefanou
Isabel Alvarez, Carlos Oramas, Jose Marin, Santiago de Murcia, Juan Hidalgo, Gaspar Sanz, Juan Aran
Tubicinatores Gedanenses et Arcus Adiuncti; Pawel Hulisz
Le Concert des Nations - Jordi Savall
L'arpa festante; Anton Steck
Ensemble d4
Lina Tur Bonet; Jadran Duncumb
Accademia del Piacere; Fahmi Alqhai; Quiteria Munoz
