44. Barbara Strozzi - Cantatas (1650s)

Recording

Title: Cantates
Performer: Susanne Ryden (soprano), Ensemble Musica Fiorita
Year: 1998
Length: 73 minutes

Review

This is a truly lovely recording, few vocal works until now have been as emotive as this recording of Barbara Strozzi's works. Strozzi comes across as a stupendous composer of beautiful and emotional songs in a large scale and the performance of this recording only makes it more so. Susanna Ryden has an amazingly emotive voice, that of someone who understands and empathises with the text.

This is a truly great album, all the independence of mind and spirit of Strozzi comes across in spades here, and then the music is so beautiful, the Cantatas are just something else, with a very big dramatic sense.

Strozzi never wrote an opera but if she would have done it as well as she made these cantatas we would probably not be talking so much about Monteverdi, so this is a really indispensable addition to your library, unfortunately this particular CD seems to be almost impossible to get by legal means, so there is always eMule!

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Until recently, it was believed that Strozzi was a courtesan, since she was unmarried and since her relationship to her father's friends in the Accademia degli Unisoni was referred to as licentious. However, evidence that at least three of her four children were fathered by the same man (Giovanni Paulo Vidman) indicates that she was probably his paramour, or mistress, at least while he was alive. After his death it is likely that Strozzi supported herself by means of her savvy investments and by her compositions. Although she dedicated her publications to several important figures, including Ferdinand II of Austria and Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick and Lüneburg, there is no evidence that these "patrons" directly supported her.

Che Si può Fare, and yes that's a guy:

43. Jacomo Carissimi - Jephte (c. 1650)

Recording

Title: Jacomo Carissimi: The Judgement of Solomon, Jephthah, Jonah
Performers: Gabrieli Consort and Players
Director: Paul McCreesh
Year: 1986
Length: around 20 minutes

Review

This is the first Oratorio on the list, which means a kind of mini-opera on a Biblical theme, although it is not meant to be performed as theatre different singers take on different characters and sing in character. The from would take on epic proportions with Bach's Passions for example.

For one of the first examples of its form this is pretty nifty stuff, although it is quite a bottom heavy piece. By bottom heavy I mean that you kind of spend the first 10 minutes waiting for the last 10 minutes, not because the first 10 are bad in anyway, they would be great by themselves, but the last two arias by the daughter of Jephte and the choir respectively are so great that they shine like nothing else in the oratorio.

The last choir is a masterpiece in 5 minutes, beautiful, mournful music that is one of the best choir works to have been on the list until now, not even Monteverdi surpasses it. Very highly recommended.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia on Carissimi:

The great achievements generally ascribed to him are the further development of the recitative, later introduced by Monteverdi, and of infinite importance in the history of dramatic music; the further development of the chamber-cantata, by which Carissimi superseded the concertato madrigals which had themselves replaced the madrigals of the late Renaissance; and the development of the oratorio, of which he was the first significant composer.

His position in the history of church music and vocal chamber music is somewhat similar to that of Cavalli in the history of opera. While Luigi Rossi was his predecessor in developing the chamber-cantata, Carissimi was the composer who first made this form the vehicle for the most intellectual style of chamber-music, a function which it continued to perform until the death of Alessandro Scarlatti, Astorga and Marcello.

If you want to hear the chorus go here, as embedding is disabled.

42. Claudio Monteverdi - L'Incoronazione di Poppea (1643)

Recording

Title: L'Incoronazione Di Poppea
Performers: Arleen Auger, Della Jones, City Of London Baroque Sinfonia
Director: Richard Hickox
Year: 1988
Length: around 2 hours 40 minutes

Review

This is the last of the operas by Monteverdi and even though it is his most mature opera it is definitely not my favourite one. Although Monteverdi has actually improved his art in making the opera more consistent throughout there are less moments of awe here. Actually there are only two quite awe inducing moments, the death of Seneca at the beginning of the second act and the last aria of the opera, which was probably not even written by Monteverdi but is a later addition.

That being said there is a lot to enjoy here, but it just did not impress me as much, the pace of the opera is quite slow, and the plot even though it is interesting it does not dazzle. The story of the illicit loves of Nero and Poppea is quite a daring one particularly in the way Monteverdi wrote it, seemingly rewarding vice with love.

The audiences in Venice would be aware however that the story does not quite end there, so it isn't as brave as one might think at first. Still it is pretty good I just like L'Orfeo and Ulisse better.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The opera takes Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of the Roman Emperor Nero, as the heroine of the plot. L'incoronazione di Poppea is Monteverdi's last opera, showing his maturity. The plot by Busenello is a masterwork of irony, on the face of it showing the apparent triumph of Amore over Virtu and Fortuna as promised by the prologue. However, the educated audience of the day would have been aware of the pregnant Poppea's subsequent murder by Nero in a fit of rage. Nero is later succeeded by Ottone as emperor: Poppea could have achieved her objective without tragedy simply by having remained faithful to Ottone in the first place.

It is believed that the opera's florid closing duet between Nerone and Poppea was written not by Monteverdi but by another composer (Benedetto Ferrari).

Pur Ti Miro, the closing of the opera:

41. Claudio Monteverdi - Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (1640)

Recording

Title: Il Ritorno D'Ulisse In Patria
Performers: Sven Olof Eliasson, László Anderko, Nikolaus Simkowsky, Rotraud Hansmann, Junge Kantorei, Vienna Concentus Musicus
Director: Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Year: 1971
Length: 2 hours 40 minutes (or thereabouts)

Review

I really like Monteverdi's Operas, the context is always epic, the music is always entertaining and it mixes the most depressive characters with (the exception being L'Orfeo) some great comic relief. This opera is no exception.

There are advantages and disadvantages between this and L'Orfeo, it shows that the composer is much more mature, the opera sustains the interest of the viewer and listener all the way to the end (I watched the Harnoncourt Deutsche Grammophone DVD as well as listening to this recording) and is not as top heavy as L'Orfeo.

Nonetheless the fact that this opera is not as dependent on choirs and leitmotifs makes it never reach the heights of singalongability (new word!) of the former opera. The inclusion of very extensive arias, like the one from Penelope at the beggining of the first act also slightly breaks the pace, but in a more interesting way than the long scenes with Charon in L'Orfeo.

All in all it was another very enjoyable opera to listen to and to see as well.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

This was Monteverdi's first opera for Venice. The opera was very successful in Venice, where it had ten performances, and was then taken to the Teatro Castrovillani in Bologna, and in 1641 was revived in Venice. In Bologna, and most likely Venice as well, the singers were Giulia Paolelli as Penelope, Maddalena Manelli as Minerva, and Francesco Manelli as Ulysses. The attribution of this work has been seriously questioned, however the attribution to Monteverdi still stands. The extant librettos differ significantly from the score, however Monteverdi was known to be a very active editor of the texts he set. The first modern revival was lead by Vincent d'Indy in Paris in 1925. A number of twentieth century composers edited, or "translated", the work for performance, including Luigi Dallapiccola and Hans Werner Henze, and finally entered the opera mainstream in 1971 with performances in Vienna and Glyndebourne, and an edition by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, along with recordings.


Excerpts from another production of the Opera:

40.Gregorio Allegri - Miserere Mei Deus (c. 1640s)

Recording

Title: Allegri Miserere
Performers: Tallis Scholars, Deborah Roberts (soprano)
Director: Peter Phillips
Year: 1994
Length: 12 minutes 30 seconds

Review

The famous Allegri Miserere sounds at the same time like a throwback to an earlier age, and like something different. It is in essence very conservative, chorales follow Gregorian Chant in a very traditional way. But some of what is done by those chorales, particularly the Soprano soloist is just sublime.

This is not, however how the music has sounded through the years, it reportadely was a lot more ornamental, and there were some mistakes in transcription that made it the unique piece that it is.

That aside however, the way it has come down to our age makes it an amazingly beautiful piece of music. Of of the few unmissable works of what is essentially the late Renaissance although we are now in the Baroque period.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Although there were a handful of supposed transcriptions in various royal courts in Europe, none of them succeeded in capturing the beauty of the Miserere as performed annually in the Sistine Chapel. According to the popular story (backed up by family letters), the fourteen-year-old Mozart was visiting Rome, when he first heard the piece during the Wednesday service. Later that day, he wrote it down entirely from memory, returning to the Chapel that Friday to make minor corrections. Some time during his travels, he met the British historian Dr. Charles Burney, who obtained the piece from him and took it to London, where it was published in 1771. Once it was published, the ban was lifted, and Allegri's Miserere has since been one of the most popular a cappella choral works now performed. The work was also transcribed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1831 and Franz Liszt, and various other 18th and 19th century sources survive.

Mozart was summoned to Rome by the Pope, only instead of excommunicating the boy the Pope showered praises on him for his feat of musical genius.

Burney's edition did not include the ornamentation that made the work famous. The original ornamentations were Renaissance techniques that preceded the composition itself, and it was these techniques that were closely guarded by the Vatican. Few written sources, not even that of Burney, showed the ornamentation, and it was this that created the legend of the work's mystery. However, the Roman priest Pietro Alfieri published in 1840 an edition with the intent of preserving the performance practice of the Sistine choir in the Allegri and Bai compositions, including ornamentation.

The piece as it is sung today, with a top C, is not authentic. It is the result of an error in the first edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music of 1880, in an article on ornamentation by the musicologist William Smith Rockstro. In it, he wrote out the first half of the verse twice, but transposed the second half up a fourth, as recorded by Felix Mendelssohn when he transcribed it. As a result the bass part leaps from F sharp to C, a progression (known as a tritone) forbidden by the rules of counterpoint at the time when Allegri was working. Sir Ivor Atkins, the choirmaster of Worcester Cathedral, copied the Rockstro verse from Grove's for his English language edition of 1951, and liked what he heard.

Miserere in Salisbury Cathedral:

39. Heinrich Schütz - Musikalische Exequien (1636)

Recording

Title: Musikalische Exequien
Performer: The Sixteen, The Symphony Of Harmony And Invention
Director: Harry Christopher
Year: 1998
Length: Around 29 minutes

Review

This is a beautiful piece of German music.... well Italo-German really, the influence of Gabrielli is more than apparent here but then it does have Schütz' distinct touch as well as being sung in the German language.

This recording consists of three tracks which are a Requiem Mass in choral form but with some really good solo singers and a light but effective instrumental accompaniment. The final result is grandiose and touching mournful and joyful at the same times, like a good Requiem should be.

We will start to get more and more German Music and when we get to the 19th century we will have to fend them off with a stick, but if Schütz is a symbol of what is to come we should all be happy for it.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Schütz's compositions show the influence of his teacher Gabrieli (displayed most notably with Schütz's use of resplendent polychoral and concertato styles) and of Monteverdi. Additionally, the influence of the Netherlandish composers of the 16th century is also prominent in his work. His best known works are in the field of sacred music, ranging from solo voice with instrumental accompaniment to a cappella choral music. Representative works include his three books of Symphoniae sacrae, the Psalms of David (Psalmen Davids), the Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (the Seven Last Words on the Cross) and his three Passion settings. Schütz's music, while starting off in the most progressive styles early in his career, eventually grows into a style that is simple and almost austere, culminating with his late Passion settings. Practical considerations were certainly responsible for part of this change: the Thirty Years' War had devastated the musical infrastructure of Germany, and it was no longer practical or even possible to put on the gigantic works in the Venetian style which marked his earlier period.

Another Psalm by Schutz as there is nothing of the Exequien on the Tubes:

38. William Lawes - Consort Setts (1630s)

Recording

Title: Consorts in Four and Five Parts
Performer: Phantasm
Director: Lawrence Dreyfus
Year: 1999
Length: Around 49 minutes

Review

Now this was an amazing recording, Lawes brings a lot of innovation to some very beautiful music. The music itself is amazing, string consort sets and very lively amazing stuff. But much more interesting than that are the little dissonances and contrasts that Lawes likes to put here.

So finally an obscure Anglo composer who is really worth the right of admission, one of those little pearls that if you never heard about it you really should. The reason why Lawes has been an obscure composer was the fact that dissonance was really not on until much later so he was kind of forgotten after his death.

Very highly recommended music here and one CD I just bought from Amazon, ahead of its time and very, very lovely music.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

William Lawes spent all his adult life in Charles's employ. He composed secular music and songs for court masques (and doubtless played in them), as well as sacred anthems and motets for Charles's private worship. He is most remembered today for his sublime viol consort suites for between three and six players and his lyra viol music. His use of counterpoint and fugue and his tendency to juxtapose bizarre, spine-tingling themes next to pastoral ones in these works made them disfavoured in the centuries after his death; they have only become widely available in recent years.

A suite fro two guitars by William Lawes:

37. John Jenkins - Fantasias (circa 1630s)

Recording

Title: The Mirrour and Wonder of his Age
Performers: Fretwork, Paul Nicholson (organ)
Year: 1995
Length: Around 29 minutes

Review

Ahh some nice Chamber music to break the vocal nature of most music on the list until now and it is quite pleasing Chamber music at that. Again this is a case of an anglocentric list, this isn't a particularly main composer and the music isn't particularly amazing, just quite pleasant.

The main interesting thing here is how the viol consort is allied to organ and this is quite novel and not something I had heard before, usually in this kind of stuff you have the harpsichord doing the continuo work, but not here.

That innovation aside this isn't particularly impressive or unimpressive, it is pretty, and very competently performed, the music does not sound dry or anyhting I just left me a bot cold, and I am a particular lover of viols. So there.

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Jenkins is buried in the nave of St. Peter's church, Kimberley, Norfolk, with this inscription:

Under this Stone Rare Jenkins lie
The Master of the Musick Art
Whom from the Earth the God on High
Called up to Him to bear his part.
Aged eighty six October twenty seven
In anno seventy eight he went to Heaven.
In God We Trust.



Another piece by John Jenkins as there were no Fantasias on the tubes, Newarke Seidge:

36. Claudio Monteverdi - Combattimento (1624)

Recording

Title: Combattimento
Performer: Le Concert d'Astrée
Director: Emmanuelle Haim
Year: 2006
Length: 18 minutes

Review

And now for something completely different. I have to take my hat off to Monteverdi his stuff is always phenomenal in the context of the age in which he was doing it, this is a clear example of that, not even in Orfeo did Monteverdi make a more expressive piece of music.

And that is the key word here, expressiveness, and that is also where this recording is particularly successful, the performers imbue the work with all the emotion it requires without ever modernising the music.

The musical effects of battle music, horses riding and also expressing Tancredo's emotions is superb, and again Monteverdi has all the credit. I am really impressed by this bit of music and hope it will reflect itself in the future operas of Monteverdi that we will have here on the list. Look out for them.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Il combattimento contains one of the earliest known uses of pizzicato in classical music, in which the players are instructed to set down their bows and use two fingers of their right hand to pluck the strings. It also contains one of the earliest uses of the string tremolo, in which a particular note is reiterated as a means of generating excitement. This latter device was so revolutionary that Monteverdi had considerable difficulty getting the players of his day to perform it correctly. These innovations, like the fourfold division of the strings, were not taken up by Monteverdi’s contemporaries or immediate successors.

Three minutes of Combattimento:

35. Thomas Tomkins - Anthems (1620's)

Recording

Title: Cathedral Music by Thomas Tomkins
Performers: Choir of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, Roger Judd (organ)
Diirector: Christopher Robinson
Year: 1989
Length: 1 hour

Review

This might just be what heaven sounds like... which would be quite boring after a while. This is not to say that Tomkins isn't good, as he is, Thomas Tomkins is a really good sacred music composer, this is one of the best albums we have been having lately of sacred choral music.

A particular highlight goes to the appropriately mournful Then David Mourned but so many choral albums in quick succession do take their toll, this is something to be digested slowly and this is one of the albums that it is worth checking out.

From checking out to adding to your iPod or CD collection goes a step, so you should try it our first and then get it... I'm stuck with the Cd however... the sacrifices I do for blogging. Still, pretty good choral music, and fortunately I am having a pause on chorales for three albums now.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Tomkins wrote madrigals, keyboard music, consort music, anthems, and liturgical music. Stylistically he was extremely conservative, even anachronistic: he seems to have completely ignored the rising Baroque practice around him, with its Italian-inspired idioms, and he also avoided writing in most of the popular forms of the time, such as the lute song, or ayre. His polyphonic language, even in the fourth decade of the 17th century, was frankly that of the Renaissance. Some of his madrigals are extremely expressive, with text-painting and chromaticism worthy of Italian madrigalists such as Marenzio or Luzzaschi.

He was also a prolific composer of verse anthems, writing more than any other English composer of the 17th century except for William Child. These pieces were highly regarded at the time, and are well-represented in contemporary manuscript collections. Fortunately for the survival of his music, his son Nathaniel edited most of it and published a huge collection of it (titled Musica Deo Sacra) in 1668, after his death; much of it otherwise would have been lost during the Civil War.

When David Heard:

34. Thomas Campion - Lute Songs (1613- 1617)

Recording

Title: Lute Songs
Performers: Steven Rickards (Countertenor), Dorothy Linell (Lute)
Year: 1996
Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Review

Thomas Campion gives us 28 Lute songs which are collected in this recording, and although it does have the merit of having been both written and composed by Campion they do not hold any kind of candle to John Dowland's equivalent works.

There are a couple of stand-outs here particularly in the first ten tracks of the album but either through exhaustion of the listener or actual quality, the tracks soon begin to blend onto each other and there is no Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire! to bring your attention back.

So this is actually a pretty unnecessary addition to anyone's library, and I do think this list has a bit too many British composers in it... it never was the Mecca of music until the mid 20th century so there is little need to pretend otherwise by cramming sub-par crap down our throats. With some exceptions (Purcell, Handel etc.) , give me some Italians until you give me some Germans and then give me Frenchies. But Dowland made some hot tracks...

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Early dictionary writers, such as Fétis saw Campion as a theorist. It was much later on that people began to see him as a composer.

Why?

Thomas Campion... the album version are considerably better:

33. Thomas Weelkes - Anthems (1610's)

Recording

Title: Cathedral Music by Thomas Weelkes
Performers: Winchester Cathedral Choir, Timothy Byram-Wigfield (Organ)
Director: David Hill
Year: 1989
Length: 1 hour 5 minutes

Review

This is a really beautiful album, even though I am getting tired of church music very fast, but this is a particularly beautiful collection of anthems. Weelkes likes his emotive music, his impressive ups and downs.

The sound is really full here, and the interplay of voices is particularly stunning. It sounds actually more modern than its age and could easily be contemporary with Bach for example, of course this comes from the troubled genius that was Weelkes.

If you liked Tallis this is most definitely a thing to get, and so you should. Unfortunately I couldn't exactly love this album, there is a certain saturation from this list, particularly until we get further on into the mid 1600's with sacred music. And I could do with a bit less of it, and about half the tracks here merit a 9 and the other half an 8... so maybe when I listen to it again in the future it will be a 9... but for the moment it is only an 8.

Final Grade

8/10


Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Weelkes was later to find himself in trouble with the Chichester Cathedral authorities for his heavy drinking and immoderate behaviour. In 1609 he was charged with unauthorised absence, but no mention of drunken behaviour is made until 1613, and J Shepherd, a Weelkes scholar, has suggested caution in assuming that his decline began before this date. In 1616 he was reported to the Bishop for being ‘noted and famed for a comon drunckard (sic) and notorious swearer & blasphemer’. The Dean and Chapter dismissed him for being drunk at the organ and using bad language during divine service. He was however reinstated and remained in the post until his death, although his behaviour did not improve; in 1619 Weelkes was again reported to the Bishop:

Dyvers tymes & very often come so disguised eyther from the Taverne or Ale house into the quire as is muche to be lamented, for in these humoures he will bothe curse & sweare most dreadfully, & so profane the service of God … and though he hath bene often tymes admonished … to refrayne theis humors and reforme hym selfe, yett he daylye continuse the same, & is rather worse than better therein.


Gloria In Excelsis Deo:

32. Claudio Monteverdi - Vespers (1610)

Recording

Title: Vespre della Beata Virgine 1610
Performer: Taverner Consort, Choir & Players
Director: Andrew Parrott
Year: 1984
Length: 1 hour 40 minutes approx.

Review

This is our first example of Monteverdi's sacred music and it was also his first major religious publication. Monteverdi brings to this many of his qualities as a secular composer, be it his love for the words, sung in a way that you can discern each individual word while not sacrificing ornamentation and Monteverdi's characteristic bright instrumentation.

To see why Monteverdi is great you have only to compare the Gregorian sections to the sections that are embellished by Monteverdi's particular genius. This being said it is a very long collection of music which can soon blend into itself.

Still there are particular stand-outs here, whether it be the epic-sized Magnificat at the beginning of the second CD in this collection or the beautiful short Responsorium which consists of the second track. A very interesting insight into the other side of Monteverdi which also confirms the superiority of his secular compositions.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The Vespers is a monumental work of music, calling for a choir large enough and skilful enough to cover up to 10 vocal parts in some movements and split into separate choirs in others while accompanying seven different soloists during the course of the piece. Interestingly, solo parts are included for violin and cornetto, but the ripieno instrumentation is not specified by Monterverdi. Additionally, Monteverdi did not specify a specific set of plainchant antiphons to insert before each psalm and the concluding Magnificat. This allows the performers to tailor the music according to the available instrumental forces and the occasion of the performance (the particular feast day's liturgy would have included suggested antiphons that could be chanted before Monterverdi's psalm settings).

Monterverdi's unique approach to each movement of the Vespers earned the work a place in history. The work not only presents intimate, prayerful moments within its monumental scale, but it also incorporates secular music in this decidedly religious performance and its individual movements present an array of musical forms - sonata, motet, hymn, and psalm - without losing focus. The Vespers achieves overall unity by building each movement on the traditional Gregorian plainchant for each text, which becomes a cantus firmus in Monteverdi's setting.

Ahh Youtube:

31. Girolamo Frescobaldi - Keyboard Works (1608 -1637)

Recording

Title: Keyboard Music, Fantasie Book I, Ricercari, Canzoni Francesi
Performer/Director: Sergio Vartolo (Harpsichord and Organ)
Year: 2000
Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

Review

This was really not that much fun, the music is fine as background noise but when you dedicate 2 hours to it it just becomes really boring really fast. This is not to say there are no merits to the music, it sounds modern for its time, but in an exceedingly dull way.

I don't thing there has been a recording in this list until now that has bored me more than this lacklustre collection of music. For all the influence and virtuosity of his compositions they are just dull especially after coming from Monteverdi's Orfeo.

At least they weren't more motets, but I am not a huge fan or organ music as it is and when it is as languorous as this it just kills me.

Final Grade

5/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Sometimes jovially referred to as "Frisky Bald Guy" in musicological circles. A play on his name, it is a fitting description of his characteristically sporadic style of composition, and the receding hairline that is evident in his later portraits.

Canzona Quarta:

30. Monteverdi - L'Orfeo (1607)

Recording

Title: L'Orfeo
Performer: Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Julianne Baird, Lynne Dawson, Anne Sofie von Otter, Nancy Argenta, Mary Nichols, John Tomlinson, Diana Montague, Willard White, Mark Tucker, Nigel Robson, Michael Chance, Simon Birchall, Howard Milner, Nicholas Robertson
Director: John Eliot Gardiner
Year: 1987
Length: 2 CD's, around 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Review

This is the first Opera on the list everyone go yay! Well it is a pretty nifty one, not everyone is a sucker for early operas but I am, I like its renaissance feel, it recovering of old themes into what is essentially musical theatre. And when it is done by the brilliant Monteverdi even better.

Monteverdi's famed love for text would make him an ideal character to create what is the first of what we now call operas to survive down to our days and to still be frequently enacted.

Then you have the music which is actually supremely catching, Monteverdi's use of themes will have you singing bits of the opera to your self after the first listen through, and after 4 which I have had now knowing it all pretty much by heart.

This recording is also beautiful, I actually got a DVD of Jordi Savall's production of the Opera which altough it is interesting and helps you put the music in context is unfortunately much inferior to this audio version. Through this list I will try to see the operas whenever possible because it is quite hard to judge the music otherwise, if there are versions of the audio music in video or DVD so much the better. But get this audio version even if it is for a very expressive Anne Sofie Von Otter as the messenger of Eurydice's death.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

L'Orfeo is marked by its dramatic power and lively orchestration. It is an early example of a composer assigning specific instruments to parts; while composers of the Venetian School had been doing this, with varying precision, for about two decades, the instrumentation in the case of L'Orfeo is unusually explicit. The plot is clearly delineated with musical contrasts, and the melodies are linear and clear; much of the writing uses the style of monody which was pioneered by the Florentine Camerata in the last decades of the 16th century. With this opera Monteverdi had created an entirely new style of music, the dramma per musica, or musical drama. This idea of theatrical works set to music was taken from the notion that the Ancient Greeks had sung their plays.


Vi ricorda ò boschi ombrosi, from the Savall version :