The Whole Music Experience

Classical   Handel/Vivaldi Dixit Dominus   La Nuova Musica David Bates and Lucy Crowe   Harmonia Mundi One of the most popular Christian music settings, Dixit Dominus (music composition for Psalms 109, or 110 in the Protestant Bible), offers baroque era vocalists a workout.  On La Nuova Musica’s recording, Dixit Dominus , conducted by David Bates, the musicians (instrumentalists and vocalists) perform Vivaldi’s third setting of the Psalms 109/110 in D major and Handel’s sober setting in G minor (going against the convention) and sandwiched between those two gems, soprano Lucy Crowe performs the 4 movements of Vivaldi’s In Furore iustissimae irae (my favorite performance on the recording). A relatively young early music choir/orchestra, La Nuova Musica has received critical acclaim and its star rose quickly into the firmament of international early music ensembles.  Certainly, this polished recording offers crystalline vocals, passio...

La Nuova Musica David Bates Handel’s Il Pastor Fido Harmonia Mundi Love is a complicated matter for Italians.  Remember the star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet?  Still, in another era, Italian troubadours roamed from court to court singing about unobtainable love.  During the classical era, Italians fumbled their way through courtship in Mozart's operas.  However, for George Frideric Handel during the Baroque era, nymphs and Greek shepherds endured Cupid’s painful arrows.  Two couples appear at the center of the baroque opera Il Pastor Fido (The Faithful Shepherd) along with an early predecessor of the femme fatale who has her own plans. Amarilli (soprano Lucy Crowe) is in love with Mirtillo (soprano Anna Dennis), but betrothed to Silvio (countertenor Clint van der Linde).  However, Silvio made a vow to Diana, goddess of the hunt and he only has one thing on his mind.  Dorinda (mezzo-soprano Madeleine Shaw), has fallen for Silvio...

Jean-Guihen Queyras Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin Vivaldi Cello Concertos Harmonia Mundi I’ve never been a huge fan of the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi’s repertoire.   I heard it grace several music soundtracks growing up, heard The Four Seasons at weddings, on street corners, farmer’s markets and cafes, mostly in passing.   I only own one other Vivaldi recording, featuring a Norwegian girl’s choir singing sacred works on Kirkelig Kulturverksted.   But Vivaldi’s cello concertos have the power to win me over and to transform the cello’s melancholic reputation.   Many of us are familiar with the expressive cello as portrayed in Bach’s (a baroque contemporary of Vivaldi) cello suites, but during the baroque era, the cello’s role was to contribute a continuous bass along with bassoon and other low-end instruments.   This means that innovative Vivaldi went against the musical protocol of his time, when he transformed the cello into a lead pl...