'Jonas' and 'Dives Malus' are particularly showy examples of the "sacred oratorios" with Latin texts chiefly taken from the Bible, which were extremely popular among the Italian aristocracy, both secular and clerical, throughout the 17th Century. Such musical theater pieces were the Counter-reformation's answer to the opera and secular oratorio, usually based on tales from Graeco-Roman sources, beloved of the Humanists. If any difference in the music is to be heard, it is that the sacred oratorios are more purely aesthetic and intellectual, while the secular oratorio is more easily comprehended by the untrained listener.

Pasquini’s golden era of dramatic composition was between the years of 1670 and 1680. Within the realm of the Oratorio genre, his creations were sought after outside the Roman circles. Performances were made in cities such as Florence, Modena, Naples and Vienna. An interesting annotation emerges from the correspondence of the Marquise of Ferrara, Ippolito Bentivoglio (studies done by Sergio Monaldini) in which Giacomo Zucchesini requests an Oratory be sung in Ferrara with a personal stipulation. E se si compiacesse ancora d’accompagnarlo con un altro di Bernardo Pasquini […] mi stimerei somma[men]te favorito. (And were it to be pleasing to have another one of Bernardo Pasquini, I would consider myself highly fortunate.)

The oratorios of the 17th century Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi, though distant ancestors of the familiar works of Haydn and Mozart, are quite different in scope and effect. They were church works, for one thing; the Latin oratorios recorded here were composed for Lenten celebrations in a Roman church, for literate worshippers who would have known the texts well and would have been attuned to what the composer was doing with them. Perhaps a good place for the modern listener to start is with the opening Jonas, which recounts the tale of Jonah's placement in belly of the whale and has as its climax his extended intra-cetaceian prayer.

Genius vindicated! Carissimi would seem to have been one of those composers popularly associated with sacred genres (in part because he was a Jesuit priest in the important post of Maestro de cappella at the Roman Collegio Germanico, in part because of the whims of the recording industry) to the neglect of the secular genres—especially the cantata—which he is acknowledged to have pursued with such distinction. During his lifetime Carissimi's cantatas were very much admired and with the appearance of this delightful CD the weight of his contemporary reputation will be more evenly divided.

The lament became a current and important feature of Italian Baroque monody, with its rhetorical and therefore dramatic connotations, generally set over a four-note descending bass line. The best known, though not the earliest, of these laments is probably Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna, a later version of which, with a sacred Latin text, was included in the composer's Selva morale e spirituale, published in Venice in 1641. In 1607 Monteverdi had provided the music for a favola in musica performed at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua, where the composer was maestro di cappella. Orfeo, with a libretto by Alessandro striggio, has a literary source in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. The success of Orfeo led to the creation of a new dramatic work, a tragedy in musica, in 1608, a deliberate attempt, as the pastoral Orfeo was not, to create a work that would in some way revive ancient Greek tragedy.

American-born soprano Jill Feldman has been at the forefront of period performance for many years. Feldman's debut solo recording for Linn is a vocal masterclass; her highly expressive style combines vocal agility with close attention to the dramatic content, beauty and meaning of the text..

Giacomo Carissimi (1605.4.18～1674.1.12) Italian composer. From 1623 to 1625, he served as a chorus member of the Tivoli Church; from 1624 to 1627, he also served as an organist. In 1628, he was appointed the chief of the church of St. Apollin in Rome. From 1628 to 1629, he served as the chief of the church in Assisi. From 1629, he served as the music director of Apollinal Church until his death. It has made important contributions to the early development of oratorio and cantata, perfected cantata, formed a structure of tunes, and improved the status of cantata to replace pastoral. The scale of his oratorio is small, and the part where the story is narrated by solo recitals is very expressive, and the role of chorus has been strengthened.

This present CD recording of 12 Motets for 1, 2 & 3 Men’s Voices and Basso continuo of Giacomo Carissimi? might be best considered an oddity as much as an attempt to satisfy a curiosity. Since there are no existing autograph Motet manuscripts of Giacomo Carissimi, all manuscripts that have been transcribed by Consortium Carissimi are transcriptions themselves of Carissimi’s contemporaries. These transcriptions of both sacred and secular music come from Library Manuscripts or Early Printed Editions, consequently much if not all of this music has not been performed and heard since.

Wolfgang Katschner and the Lute Compagney provide the oratorios 'Jonas' and 'Judicium extremum' with a Dixit Dominus and a Magnificat, which in their expressiveness are in no way inferior to the more popular oratorios.

Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) celebrated his 400th birthday in 2005. Reason enough to pay tribute to this most important composer of the 17th century with a recording of some of his oratorios. Thanks to a very lively live recording of a concert with Jérome Correas and Les Paladins on Pan Classics, we now get to know five of his much admired oratorios.

Luigi Rossi (1598-1653), along with Monteverdi and Frescobaldi, were significant composers of the first half of the seventeenth century. His appreciation for the emotions of texts led him to devise a new means of expression in vocal music, which was the major part of his output. He was one of the first composers whose primary field was secular vocal music.

David Bates leads La Nuova Musica in 'Sacrifices', a programme of intensely dramatic oratorios from the mid Baroque. Three poignant tales of denail and sacrifice: St Peter's denial of Christ; Abraham's [narrowly averted] sacrifice of his son Isaac; and the Old Testament story of Jepthe, the hero commander who, before leading the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites, vows to God that if he is victorious, he will sacrifice the first living thing he meets upon his return.

This is the first solo recital recording of mezzo soprano Romina Basso, yet currently one of the most busy and outstanding baroque specialists. Recorded in Athens with the Greek musicians of the Latinitas Notra ensemble and led by Markellos Chryssicos, this striking record offers incandescent and special performances of Italian baroque masterpieces that feature among the most heart-rending, including: Monteverdi’s 'Lamento d’Arianna', Rossi’s 'Lamento della regina di Svezia' and Strozzi’s 'Lagrime mie'.

In 2014, Bruce began a project together with Czech soprano Hana Blažíková to explore the affinity of the cornetto and the human voice. The project was called Breathtaking: A Cornetto and a Voice Entwined. With the program that evolved from that project, Bruce and Hana recorded a CD for the Passacaille label and toured the world performing the program more than forty times in North America, Europe and Australia. In order to make the touring financially viable, they have paired with backup ensembles in Europe, the USA and Australia.

This package, released on Archiv Laserdisc and VHS in December 1993, was recorded a year earlier at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in cooperation with a consortium of European television broadcasters. It consists of two distinct but complementary programs, the first under McCreesh followed by another under Pinnock. As the notes point out, the basilica is the perfect site for such a program, since it has claimed to possess the very crib in which the infant lay on the first Christmas. For centuries the papal celebration of the Midnight Mass of Christmas was held “ad praesepe,” at the altar where the crib was venerated. Typically for such concert videos, we see appropriate scenes in the basilica alternating with views of the singers and players.