Giovanni Battista Sammartini is considered the first great symphony composer of the European musical history. Nine of his symphonies are presented here, as part of an extensive project to release the entire repertoire of Sammartini’s symphonic writing.

Giovanni Battista Sammartini was undoubtedly one of most important musicians of early 18th-century Italy. The first performance of Memet took place in 1732, when the composer was just over thirty years old. The plot complies with the enlightened music’s widespread taste for the middle-eastern world, while the structure is that of a tragedy in three acts with five characters (Memet, Solimano, Irene, Zaide and Demetrio) and without choir. The quality of the music is certainly high, thanks to Sammartini’s mature and effective orchestration and to the variety of his melodic inventiveness - quite remarkable in some solo episodes - which spans from cantabile to agility passages of virtuoso difficulty. A world première recording that is a must for opera lovers.

The programme presented by Ann Hallenberg for DHM is a homage to the historical roman figure of Agrippina, one of the earliest historical women to inspire the fantasy of librettists and composers. Ann Hallenberg and a team of musicologists researched the musical archives to unearth all surviving operatic manuscripts containing the figure of Agrippina. Twelve of the arias are WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS. Apart from Handel’s famous opera ‘Agrippina’ and Telemann’s ‘Germanicus’, all music on this album has been recorded for the first time. This album is also a fascinating journey through the history of baroque opera. The earliest piece, Legrenzi’s ‘Germanico sul Reno’ dates from 1676 and is a typical example of early baroque style. The latest work, Graun’s ‘Britannico’ from 1752, was written only four years before the birth of Mozart, at the very end of the musical baroque period.