Considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) nevertheless left only a small body of recordings due to his perfectionism. Nor did he give live concerts often, frequently canceling them at the last minute for flimsy reasons. Still, his playing was prized for its clarity, directness, and unique interpretations.

Baldassare Galuppi was extremely popular during his lifetime, and according to more than one contemporary source he died the wealthiest Italian composer of the 18th century. Though primarily remembered for his contribution to the development of opera (he wrote more than 100), Galuppi also composed an abundance (148 works as of last count) of oratorios, cantatas, motets, and masses. Utilizing a score that Galuppi composed earlier, conductor Filippo Maria Bressan and the Academia de li Musici and the Athestis Chorus offer a reconstruction of a service that may have taken place in 1766 during Advent at St. Marks in Venice, where Galuppi held his long-standing position of musical director.

Decca’s new release brings together five of the world’s most renowned countertenors, who bring the rich world of baroque opera to life. Once rarely heard, countertenors are now firmly established on the operatic stage and concert platform and their popularity has reached an all-time high. This album features virtuosic highlights from baroque opera and showcases the extraordinary abilities of five astonishing artists: Max Emanuel Cencic, Yuriy Mynenko, Valer Sabadus, Xavier Sabata and Vince Yi.

Masterpieces of Baroque piano literature, in critically acclaimed recordings by pianists with a fine sensibility for the 18th century. Recordings made between 2005 and 2023; new booklet essay; an ideal budget introduction to the world of the Baroque keyboard, full of elegant dances and virtuoso playing.

Sacred music written for female singers and instrumentalists of the Ospedali became celebrated during the 18th century. This unique musical tradition became widely famous largely through the works of such notable composers as Vivaldi, Hasse, Porpora and Galuppi, who were active as teachers at the four "Ospedali grandi".

“Roma travestita” è il titolo dell’album di debutto discografico per il sopranista Bruno de Sá con l’etichetta Erato. Il repertorio esplorato dal giovane cantante brasiliano corrisponde al periodo storico in cui alle donne era proibito calcare i palcoscenici teatrali a Roma ed erano gli uomini ad interpretare ruoli operistici femminili. Otto delle tredici arie dell’album vengono presentate in prima registrazione assoluta. Il progetto vede la collaborazione dell’orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro diretta da Francesco Corti per l’esecuzione di arie del XVIII secolo di Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Vinci, Galuppi e Piccinni, e di autori meno frequentati come Capua, Arena, Cocchi, Conforto e Garcìa Fajer. In scena Bruno de Sá ha già cantato in ruoli come Sesto nel Giulio Cesare di Händel e ne La clemenza di Tito di Mozart, Barbarina ne Le nozze di Figaro di Mozart e La Sirenetta nell’adattamento operistico della favola di Hans Christian Andersen composto da Jherek Bischoff.

The young Swiss soprano Marie Lys was pleasantly surprised to discover that many of the roles she has sung in George Frideric Handel’s works in recent years were written for the spectacularly virtuoso soprano Anna Maria Strada, Handel’s prima donna in the London of the 1730s. Accompanied by the Abchordis Ensemble and Andrea Buccarella, the group’s conductor and harpsichordist, Marie Lys decided to dedicate her first solo CD on Glossa to “La Stradina”, with an in-depth study of Anna Maria’s life on stage and the extraordinary vocal skills her roles demanded.

Vivaldi discoveries are not infrequent. …a third D major setting by the composer of the Vespers psalm Dixit Dominus, appears here on disc for the first time. It is a splendid piece: with scoring including woodwind and trumpet, it begins with a brief but dazzling chorus and concludes with a rewardingly worked fugue. Among the several intervening sections, a duet for two tenors, highly ornamented and vivaciously sung by Paul Agnew and Thomas Cooley, the chorus 'Juravit Dominus' and a contralto aria… sung with sensibility by Sara Mingardo.

The works on this disc—an undated Dixit Dominus, the Nisi Dominus of 1777, the Kyrie originally composed in 1746 and extensively revised in 1782, the Gloria of 1779, and the Credo of 1781—owe much to the Venetian School of the late Baroque, especially the sacred music of Vivaldi. [Several notable works previously attributed to Galuppi have, upon academic scrutiny, been re-attributed to Vivaldi, in fact.] On the surface, it seems surprising that music dating primarily from the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century is so comparatively little influenced by Classicism as it was then developing north of the Alps. It should be remembered, though, that the model of Alessandro Scarlatti remained a large influence on sacred music throughout Europe well into the first decades of the Nineteenth Century.

The Venice Baroque Orchestra and a fine line-up of singers present a pasticcio setting of a libretto by Metastasio, with contributions from composers including Caldara, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Hasse and Paisiello. In the eighteenth century, 1,300 years after the last Olympic Games in ancient times, the Olympic theme was highly fashionable. Many composers based operas on the libretto L'Olimpiade by Metastasio. This recording has been structured to contain all of Metastasio’s original arias; it is a pasticcio in the sense that the music is by 16 different composers amongst the many that set the libretto between 1733 and the end of the century.

"L’Inimico delle Donne" which means someone who doesn’t like women, is an opera written by Galuppi in 1771. He was very well-known at this time but when he died, suddenly his works disappeared from the stages. Among them ”L’Inimico delle Donne” disappeared so well that nobody knew it existed. Hence it has never been played since its first venue in Venice in 1771. Some years ago its manuscript was found in Lisbon and Royal Opéra de Wallonie decided to recreate and to stage it.

In his lifetime, Baldassare Galuppi was a well-known and popular composer across Europe. He wrote a hundred and ten operas for performance in the London theatre and at the court of Catherine II in Saint Petersburg, as well as in Florence and Venice in his native Italy. He was also a noted harpsichordist and kapellmeister. These two CDs are the first complete recording of his harpsichord concertos.

If you believe Charles Burney, the English music scholars and European travelers in terms of music, then was hard to determine what was miserable, the Italian harpsichords or the Italian harpsichordist in the 1770s. But an exception in his polemical verdict he would certainly have done with Baldassarre Galuppi (1706-1785), whom he visited in Venice in 1770. Galuppi was not only an excellent opera composer, but also devoted to keyboard instruments truly enchanting music that was like his Opere buffe Europe estimated. The famous Italian harpsichordist Luca Guglielmi has recorded for Accent nine of his sonatas on four different types of keyboard instruments (harpsichord, clavichord, organ and fortepiano) Italian origin - a successful and very entertaining vindication for Italian harpsichordist and their instruments.

Galuppi is important in operatic history as the pioneer of the finalé, joining movements into a concerted whole in which the dramatic action reaches a crucial situation and is then developed. His most successful operas were written, as here, with the Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni who had reformed the original ‘comedia dell'arte’ and developed this into ‘opera buffe’, thus bringing comedy into the opera house. His texts provided simplicity and directness with reduction of dialogue, more musical numbers, including arias, lovers’ duets and big final ensembles. Galuppi set the dialogue words with secco recitative. In combination Goldoni and Galuppi were said to have invented ‘opere buffe’.

Galuppi was a very accomplished composer and harpsichord player by the age of twenty with a reputation in both Venice and Florence. He was a pupil of Marcello and played for Vivaldi. He composed many serious and comic operas as well as much sacred and keyboard music. During his 79 years he travelled to St Petersburg and was well-known to the Tsar‘s family. He collaborated with the famous Italian playwright Goldoni in many projects. Goldoni‘s epigram on Galuppi: “What music! What style! What masterworks!”