A. Scarlatti: Oratorio per La Santissima Trinità

Alessandro Stradella Consort;
Velardi, Estévan

95535

An 18th-century oratorio full of pacy, engaging arias, in a critically praised period-instrument recording from 2001. The conductor Esteban Velardi has worked as diligently as anyone to revive the music of the ‘other’ Scarlatti, Alessandro (father of Domenico), who is widely considered a founder of the Neapolitan school of music that, in the late 18th century, captivated audiences across Europe with a rhythmically vital and theatrical approach to even the most time-honoured or abstract subjects – such as the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which became the subject for one of the composer’s final works. Enriched by a lifetime’s mastery of theatrical timing and virtuosic vocal writing, the oratorio ‘stages’ a conflict of belief between the character of Faithlessness and the professions of Faith, Divine Love, Time and Theology. If that sounds like an unprepossessing basis for an hour and a half of music, Scarlatti and Velardi between them never let the narrative sag, not least through the vivid and varied use of an instrumental ensemble with notable obbligato solos for a violin, imitating birdsong, and a cello for a river.

CD x 2

Muzyka klasyczna

Brilliant Classics

13-11-2019

5028421955353