In 1996, the complete recording of the oratorio La morte del cor penitente (The Death of the Penitent Heart), composed around 1671, by the Northern Italian Early-Music ensemble Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca was a special event: for the first time, the Italian composer Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690) an important creator of sacred and chamber music – was introduced with a voluminous work. At the same time, the recording, which went on to win several awards, also marked the beginning of the career of the Sonatori around Andrea Marcon, now long famous. Legrenzi was a master of baroque musical rhetoric: expressive harmonies and melodic elegance transformed the libretto by an unknown author, which illustrates its theme with numerous metaphors, into a sensuous pleasure.

'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.

During the early 1990s Antonio Florio (together with Dinko Fabris) was making substantial discoveries in the field of Baroque repertory from Naples for performance and recording, and now that Florio and I Turchini are making new recordings for Glossa (Caresana’s Tenebrae and L’Adoratione de’ Maggi), we are delighted to be bringing back into circulation some of those earlier ground-breaking recordings, signed by Roberto Meo and Sigrid Lee, focusing here – with Il Canto della Sirena – on Neapolitan chamber cantatas from the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Founded in Amsterdam in 1979 by Alan Curtis, one of the most acclaimed specialists in the interpretation of pre-romantic music, Il Complesso Barocco, has become a renowned international baroque orchestra with a focus on Italian Baroque opera and oratorio. Their rich discography was for a time devoted to the late madrigal repertory, and the film director Werner Herzog chose the ensemble as protagonists for his film Morte a cinque voci (Prix Italia 1996 and Premio Rembrandt, Amsterdam 1996) dedicated to the composer Carlo Gesualdo.

Italian late Renaissance composer Giulio Caccini (1551-1618) was not only one of the most famous composers of his time but also an exceptionally gifted singer. "Dolcissimo sospiro" presents a fine selection of strophic arias and madrigals from Caccini's "Nuove Musiche". Singer of those "sweetest sigh", Roberta Invernizzi, is one of the most sought-after sopranos in the field of Early Music. The Accademia Strumentale Italiana, an ensemble specializing in Early Music, has performed extensively in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and Germany and has been invited to several international festivals. This recording received the Midem Award for the Best Recording of Early Music in 2007.

Als Freiluftmusik erklang die Huldigungskantate „Der zufriedengestellte Aeolus“ 1725 zum Namenstag des bei den Leipziger Studenten sehr beliebten Universitätsprofessors, Juristen und Philosophen August Friedrich Müller. Das eigens für diesen festlichen Anlass von Johann Sebastian Bach komponierte Werk zeigt, wie sehr sich der Komponist aktiv am universitären-musikalischen Leben seiner Wirkungsstätte Leipzig beteiligte.

Monteverdi's seminal first opera tells the dramatic story from Ovid's Metamorphoses of the descent of Orfeo (Georg Nigl) into the underworld to recover his beloved wife Euridice (Roberta Invernizzi), who has died from a snake bite. In a new production for La Scala, based on a painting by Titian and directed by Robert Wilson, the opera receives a powerful and inspiring performance from a fine cast, the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala and Concerto Italiano under the much-admired Italian early music specialist, Rinaldo Alessandrini. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true surround sound.

The latest striking release from soprano Roberta Invernizzi acts as a lightning conductor for this new vocal extravaganza from Glossa devoted to the Italian Baroque composer Francesco Gasparini. Invernizzi finds herself very much home both in the music – which was originally first-performed around the turn of the eighteenth century and which provided “influences” for Handel, who was Gasparini’s junior by some 20 years – but also, so noticeably, with the words: librettos from the likes of Zeno, Piovene or Salvi find this singer exercising her customary intelligence.

The banning of opera performances during Lent in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome meant that composers had to turn their attention to biblical subjects. However there is no sense that either composer or librettist felt at all limited in their subject matter, judging from the extraordinarily inventive oratorios that were produced during this time. Scarlatti’s work tells the dramatic story of David and Goliath. Whilst the biblical account relays the story in a few sentences, the anonymous librettist of Davidis pugna et victoria expands upon these to create an extensive libretto, with the characters fully developed and explored.

Vivaldi's first opera, Ottone in Villa (loosely, Ottone's Vacation), is something of an anomaly in the composer's output of largely tragic, heroic works: a pastoral comedy. Written in 1713 when the composer was 35, Ottone demonstrates Vivaldi's instinctive grasp of the operatic form and his gifts for characterization and dramatic development. Naïve continues its admirable series, The Vivaldi Edition, with this outstanding recording of the opera, a real gem. Giovanni Antonini leads Il Giardino Armonico, which plays with gleaming transparency. The performance is wonderfully lively and the opera's dancing energy is conveyed with high spirits and humor. Vivaldi is not a composer usually associated with comedy, so Ottone surprises with its wealth of delightful, sly wit.

Très jeune, Giovanni Paisiello connut un grand succès, aussi bien en Italie qu'à l'étranger. Il est surtout réputé pour son Barbier de Séville (1782) d'après Beaumarchais, déjà, qui influença bien évidemment Rossini et aussi Mozart pour ses Noces de Figaro. Ludwig van Beethoven lui-même utilisera une aria La Molinara "Nel cor piu non mi sento" pour composer une de ses oeuvres. Un autre opéra, créé en 1789, connut un renouveau récent grâce à la superbe interprétation du rôle-titre par Cecilia Bartoli : Nina, ossia la Pazza per Amore.

Even in these circumspect times‚ the ambitious ‘Tesori di Napoli’ series continues unearthing works whose merit is one thing‚ but whose significance for future generations is a fascinating sideshow. Niccolò Jommelli‚ if not exactly a household name‚ was an established Neopolitan mid18th century ‘master’ whose reputation was founded on operatic successes in several major centres – enough to secure him a fine eulogy from Dr Burney in 1770. For the uninitiated (and knowing only the odd cantata and vespers settings‚ I count myself such)‚ the fluid tonal progression of the recitatives in Jommelli’s comic ‘intermezzo’‚ Don Trastullo‚ has da PonteMozart resonating with illuminating prescience.

With I Viaggi di Faustina Glossa is launching a new collection focusing on famous Italian singers from the 17th and 18th centuries, whose travels bear witness to the intense level of artistic activity then taking place in the major cities of Europe. Faustina Bordoni, the brilliant diva with whom we begin this series pursued her career mainly in Naples (the principal focus of this CD) and Venice, but also in cities such as Bologna, Parma, Dresden and London. These were cities hosting – with great success – operas by Johann Adolph Hasse (Bordoni’s husband), Nicola Popora, Leonardo Vinci, Francesco Mancini and Domenico Sarro; most of these composers are represented on this first selection of wonderful arias.

For more than two centuries Naples was a province of Spain, and after this ended in 1707 the remarkable cross-fertilisation of culture between them did not stop. Much of the Italian music featured here has been edited from sources in Spanish collections. The vast bulk of it is devoted to Leonardo Vinci (one of the most celebrated Italian opera composers of the 1720s). Only one short piece tacked onto the end is actually Spanish: a colourful fandango from José de Nebra's zarzuela Vendado es amor,no es ciego (1744) in which three singers mockingly compare the squabbling goddesses of classical antiquity to bickering mothers-in-law.

Fabio Bonizzoni returns with his long-awaited new recording of Handel’s 'Aci, Galatea e Polifemo'. Who better to team up with Bonizzoni, performing the role of the luckless shepherd Aci, than scintillating soprano Roberta Invernizzi. Her captivating contributions to Glossa's Handel series with La Risonanza as well as her 'I Viaggi di Faustina' have drawn powerful critical plaudits, including more than one disc of the Month.