Les Pages et Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles / Collegium Marianum / Olivier Schneebeli MICHEL-RICHARD DE LALANDE Grands Motets

One of the great composing figures from the French Baroque, Michel-Richard de Lalande is starting to receive his just dues through modern recordings, and Glossa is happy to unveil a new release featuring Olivier Schneebeli directing Les Pages et Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles in three of Lalande’s sumptuous grands motets. Very much a favoured composer during the reign of Louis XIV, Lalande progressively assumed – from the 1680s onwards – more and more of the principal court offices, and was called upon to provide sacred music for the Chapelle Royale within the Château de Versailles. Although the new (and ‘definitive’) chapel was not consecrated until 1710, the trio of grands motets (extended multi-movement choral and solo settings, typically of Psalms, with instrumental accompaniment) recorded here will have been conceived of according to the chapel’s architectural and acoustical characteristics. Thomas Leconte, from the CMBV, provides an illuminating historical backdrop in his booklet essay.

Much detailed performing information from Lalande’s time is known today – including number of instrumental forces used and about the composer’s later revisions of his scores – and Venite, exultemus Domino, De profundis and Dominus regnavit all receive expressive and meticulously-prepared performances within the Chapelle Royale itself. To the quality of preparation of the CMBV maîtrise can be added the presence of a quartet of vocal soloists deeply experienced in the style of music from this time: Chantal Santon-Jeffery, Reinoud Van Mechelen, François Joron and Lisandro Abadie. Likewise, the contribution of Jana Semerádová’s Collegium Marianum provides exemplary instrumental support to Schneebeli’s direction in this new CMBV production.

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie HANDEL Music for Queen Caroline

Queen Caroline was an emblematic female figure of the eighteenth century. The wife of King George II of England, Caroline of Ansbach was a woman of great beauty, a supporter of the arts and sciences, and also a friend and protector of Handel.

It was Handel who was commissioned to compose the ceremonial music that accompanied her reign—“The King Shall Rejoice” played at her and George’s coronation, the “Queen Caroline” Te Deum, written for her arrival in England, and also “The Ways of Zion do Mourn,” composed for her funeral.

In this recording which, for the first time, brings together these three works illustrating the very strong link between the queen and her chosen artist, the choir and orchestra of Les Arts Florissants, whose ranks were enlarged for the occasion, bring back to life music that is at once flamboyant and poignantly human.

Roberta Invernizzi / Blandine Staskiewicz / Lisandro Abadie / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Aci, Galatea e Polifemo

Fabio Bonizzoni returns with his long-awaited new recording of Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo which serves both as a pendant for his award-winning series of Handel Cantatas for Glossa and as a further exploration from him into the serenata form (which has already brought forward gems from Vivaldi and Alessandro Scarlatti). 

Who better to team up once again with Bonizzoni – and performing the role of the luckless shepherd Aci – than that scintillating soprano Roberta Invernizzi, whose captivating contributions to the Handel series from La Risonanza as well as her just-released Neapolitan Baroque music travels with Antonio Florio in I Viaggi di Faustina have been drawing powerful critical plaudits and inciting listener joy in equal measure. Joining Roberta Invernizzi for the dramatic energy called upon in Handel’s virtuosic and ebullient score, written for a 1708 wedding whilst he was in Naples (Carlo Vitali sets the scene in his enjoyably discursive booklet essay) are the Argentinean bass Lisandro Abadie – summoned to demonstrate an awe- inspiring range that well becomes the monstrous nature of Polifemo – and French mezzo Blandine Staskiewicz, admirably suited to portray Galatea’s plaintive charms. 

Not least among the attractions of this new Glossa release are the demands placed by the young Handel on the instrumental forces at his disposal and here triumphantly delivered by a La Risonanza in exuberant form, in a recording made in Saint- Michel en Thiérache in France. (GLOSSA)