In a new recording of music by Alessandro Scarlatti, Josetxu Obregóns La Ritirata parades its dazzling vocal and instrumental talents in presenting the four cantatas which involve recorders and violins, together with an additional standalone soprano aria, for a further Glossa Neapolitan-flavored release. Drawn from his well over 800 secular cantatas these works combine fully-integrated, imaginative recitatives, expressive and dramatic arias and colorful and exacting instrumental sinfonias and ritornelli into elegant and compact wholes, and featuring poetic texts which typically followed the aspirations of the Accademia degli Arcadi literary circle initiated in Rome around the turn of the eighteenth century.

Facce d’amore, ‘Faces of love’ follows Jakub Józef Orliński’s first solo album, Anima Sacra, which moved Gramophone magazine to announce that “This is a voice with a big future.” It brings a switch from the sacred to the personal and passionate. As the Polish-born, New York-trained countertenor says, the programme – which includes eight world premiere recordings – comprises “operatic arias that tell a story, showing a musical picture of a male lover in the baroque era – not only the positive side, like joyful or reciprocated love, but also anger or even madness.” Spanning some 85 years of the baroque period, the arias on Facce d’amore are by Handel, Cavalli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Bononcini, Conti, Hasse, Orlandini, Predieri and Matteis. Orliński is again partnered by the instrumentalists of Il Pomo d’Oro and their Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev.

Il Martirio di Sant'Orsola was probably written and sung in Rome between 1695 and 1700. The identification of the author of the libretto and the circumstances of composition remain unknown. The handwritten score and its separate parts, preserved in the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon and returned here, is indeed the only European version of the work. It was copied for the Academy of Fine Arts of Lyon to which it belonged, probably by amateurs bringing back from their travels many works, as evidenced by the importance of the Italian music in the funds Lyons. The orators of Scarlatti were played from 1718 to 1731 at the Academy.

Until recently all traces of Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio Il martirio di Santa Cecilia had been lost. Discovered in the manuscript collection of the Fondation Martin Bodmer in Cologny, near Geneva, this oratorio which had been undiscovered for decades was immediately performed in Zurich. Karl Böhmer (the booklet author) and Oliver Mattern produced the first modern edition of the work. The interpreters on that occasion are again featured on the present recording. This sacred tragedy could rightly be termed one of the most dramatic and mature oratorios of the Roman baroque.

After a first album dedicated to Weill, Zemlinsky and Korngold (Alpha272), Kate Lindsey explores here her other repertoire of choice, the music of the eighteenth century. In partnership with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, she has recorded three cantatas focusing on the myth of Ariadne, abandoned on the island of Naxos after helping Theseus kill the Cretan Minotaur by giving him a ball of thread so that he could find his way back through the labyrinth. Alessandro Scarlatti's Ebra d amor fuggia (1707) relates Ariadne's flight, drunk with love , alongside Theseus, for whom she expresses her tenderness in the magnificent aria Pur ti stringo .

Senesino, the voice that inspired Handel's greatest operas showpiece arias by Handel, Lotti, Albinoni, Porpora and Scarlatti. One of the truly outstanding voices of today, star countertenor Andreas Scholl celebrates one of the 18th Century's greatest vocal superstars, the remarkable male alto known as Senesino. Senesino's place in history was secured by his extraordinary association with Handel, who after travelling to Dresden to hear him, brought him to London to join his Italian Opera Company, where he was greatly celebrated by the public, and much admired by the ladies.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

John Beard, Francesco Borosini, Annibale Fabri: these three men helped to revolutionized music in the 18th century. Their voices moved the greatest composers of the time to increasingly write for tenors, a move from the Castrati, which had dominated opera since 1600. Now, three centuries since this trio’s brilliance encouraged a surge of new repertoire for the vocal range, world renowned tenor Ian Bostridge celebrates their legacy with his stunning new release, Three Baroque Tenors.

The edition for this premiere recording has been made by Karl Böhmer, who has provided an informative introductory essay, and Oliver Mattern. Gérard Lesne has made something of a speciality of Scarlatti’s music and his lively direction of Sedecia benefits from his fluent handling of dramatic and stylistic aspects of the work… A splendid achievement.

Hitherto unpublished works by the very popular late seventeenth- / early eighteenth- century Italian composers Alessandro Scarlatti and Giovanni Bononcini - that's what Soprano Amaryllis Dieltiens and her continuo partner Bart Naessens found in the Brussels collection of François-Joseph Fétis, who was a famous musicologist in the nineteenth century. With their ensemble Capriola di Gioia they present many of these pieces recorded here for the first time ever. The quality of the compositions is on a par with those already known - an irresistible pleasure for friends of secular Baroque cantatas! Soprano Amaryllis Dieltiens has been acclaimed particularly by connoisseurs of Baroque singing.

Greek mezzo-soprano, Mary-Ellen Nesi, who sings all five works, produces a stream of gloriously firm tone reminiscent of Bernada Fink, another superb mezzo on the scene these days. Her diction and moulding of phrases here is excellent. The two Leonardo Leo settings of the Salve Regina (in C Minor and F Major) which begin the disc are followed by a cello Concerto (also by Leonardo Leo) and a world premiere recording of an Alessandro Scarlatti setting of salve Regina (in C Minor) and then the two better known Pergolesi settings (in C and A Minor) conclude the disc. The cello soloist is lovely too and all works receive excellent support from Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco.

When it comes to old Italian vocal music, the Italian choir "La Stagione Armonica" from Padua under the direction of Sergio Balestracci has proven its high musical level several times. After the recording with responsories, which Alessandro Scarlatti composed for Good Saturday, the follow-up album with Scarlatti's responsories for Good Friday is now released.

In attempting to select something from the vast pool of solo cantatas left behind by Alessandro Scarlatti, it's hard to know what to highlight. Argentine soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr, a prominent European early music specialist who honed her craft in the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under René Jacobs, casts in her lot with both the elder Scarlatti and Concerto Soave in a recital consisting of three of the elder Scarlatti's solo cantatas in Harmonia Mundi's Alessandro Scarlatti: Bella madre de' fiori.

Il giardino d'amore ou Venere e Adone (Vénus et Adonis) est une serenata à deux voix (SA), trompette, sopranino, cordes et basse continue du compositeur italien Alessandro Scarlatti, sur un livret en italien d'un auteur inconnu et composée dans les premières années du xviiie siècle. On ignore les circonstances de la composition de cette sérénade.

Depuis plus d'une décennie, Gérard Lesne poursuit un splendide travail de redécouverte du répertoire baroque sacré, qu'il chante avec sa voix merveilleuse de haute- contre, accompagné de son ensemble Il Seminario Musicale. Ce disque est l'occasion de les retrouver dans de très beaux Motets de Scarlatti - Alessandro Scarlatti, le père de Domenico, l'auteur des fameuses 555 sonates pour clavier. Tout est subtilité, douceur et expression, comme toujours avec Gérard Lesne.