Olinto Pastore-Italian Cantatas Vol. 6 [Import]

... that the Italian Handel is here to stay! In fact, the young Saxon who took musical Rome by storm while still in his 20s seems to be elbowing the bluff and beefy London Handel aside, in terms of topnotch performances and five-star recordings. Georg Friederich Handel (1685-1759) spent only the years 1706-1710 in Italy, but he produced enough glorious music just in those years to rank among the greatest composers of the baroque. He knew the value of that music, by the way, and recycled much of it in his later operas and oratorios.

Count and later marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli was among the great patrons of music in the Papal courts of Rome, with whom Handel resided for most of his time there. Along with Cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphili, Ruspoli was a leading `shepherd' of the Arcadian Academy, the elite circle of `counterreformation' intellectuals which dominated the musical and poetic life of the Eternal City. All three were ardent supporters of the young Handel, responsible for commissioning and presenting in their palaces most of the cantatas, serenades, and chamber operas he composed during his Italian sojourn. At those events, Handel mingled with and performed side by side with the most skillful Italian composers, instrumentalists and singers of the epoch, including Corelli, Scarlatti, and Mancini. Whatever else the Arcadian Academy may have been (and there are sundry opinions about that subject), it was a musical "think tank' of the highest order.

The three `pastoral' cantatas recorded on this CD were all commissioned by Ruspoli. `Olinto pastore' is Handel's setting of an anonymous sychophantic text, in which the shepherd Olinto and the personification of Glory exhort the River Tiber to reassert its former greatness in the world. The Tiber is obviously to be understood as Pope Clement, while `Olinto' was one of Ruspoli's Arcadian code names. The cantata is scored for two sopranos and an alto, with an orchestra including a trumpet. The alto sings the role of the ancient Tiber, who is aroused to vigor by Olinto's promises of support. The second cantata on this CD, `Duello amoroso', portrays a quarrel between the importunate shepherd Daliso (alto) and the scornful nymph Amarilli (soprano). Both cantatas offer exceptionally vibrant and virtuosic recitativos and arias for the alto singer; the premier performances were sung by the celebrated castrato Pacuale Betti, but I seriously doubt that he sang any more brilliantly than alto Romina Basso on this CD. Basso has been featured on several of the recordings of Handel's Roman cantatas by `La Risonanza', but the arias of Olinto pastore and Duello amoroso seem especially suited to her range and timbre.

Sopranos Roberta Invernizzi and Yetzabel Arias Fernández are also `regulars' with La Risonanza. This is the sixth voume of the ensemble projected recording of all of Handel's Italian cantatas, and the two sopranos sing superbly, as usual. Fernández takes the solo `spotlight' in the third cantata here, `Alpestre monte', the lament of a spurned lover who has fled to the desolate mountains, there to die in solitude. It's just two recitativos and two arias in length, but the second aria is one of the loveliest songs of melancholy in all of Handel's oeuvre. The Italian texts and translations are included for all three cantatas, but the affect of the music is so clear that words are almost superfluous.

La Risonanza is one of the finest baroque instrument ensembles performing these days. Director Fabio Bonizzoni also performs the harpsichord continuo for most of the recitativos with musical charm and sensitivity. Violinist Leila Schavegh deserves notice for the elegance of her `obbligato' passages in the arias of Olinto pastore.

The six volumes of La Risonanza's "Le Cantate Italiane di Handel" have been so uniformly splendid that I ordered thsi CD even before it was officially released. Buying all six is, I suppose, a heavy investment, but the quality of performance and of sound reproduction justifies the cost. Don't wait too long, by the way; some of the volumes are already becoming hard to find.

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