Sergio Foresti / Stile Galante / Stefano Aresi ANTONIO CALDARA Brutus

With this album, Stile Galante continues its work in the world of the Italian solo chamber cantata – here Stefano Aresi’s ensemble joins forces with baritone Sergio Foresti in order to bring us a selection of cantatas by Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) for bass. These unusual pieces are preserved in precious manuscripts in Bologna and Vienna and are extremely demanding for the singer, asking for great skills (both vocal and theatrical). The seven cantatas recorded here offer a welcome, unusual view on Italian vocal chamber music, especially as linked to the Viennese court. The Italian bass, Sergio Foresti, graduated with full marks in piano, under the guidance of Germana Ruozi, and in singing with Maria Gabriella Munari at the Istituto Musicale O. Vecchi. He subsequently took part in the specialising courses held by Liliana Poli and Leonardo De Lisi. Sergio Foresti made his debut in 1998 in L’Olimpiade by Antonio Vivaldi at the Teatro Rendano di Cosenza. From then on, he started to appear in some of the most important festivals and theatres throughout Europe.

Stile Galante / Stefano Aresi PORPORA L'Amato Nome

Nicola Porpora’s Op 1 set of Italian chamber cantatas receive a new and striking reading directed by Stefano Aresi, a leading interpreter of the Late Baroque composer. Neapolitan-born Porpora brought his nuove musiche with him in the early 1730s when he had set out for London (with his pupil Farinelli) to take advantage of the perceived wavering of Handel’s operatic fame there. Porpora, espying an opportunity there just as Handel himself had done before, quickly ingratiated himself with the nobility in Britain and his 12 cantatas, though probably written in Naples, were published under the patronage of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales of Great Britain. They enjoyed substantial success at the time, and reflecting the primacy of Italian music across Europe, not least through Porpora’s masterly settings of Pietro Metastasio’s texts extolling Arcadian tastes and ideals.

These dozen works are shared between four singers from Stile Galante – Francesca Cassinari and Emanuela Galli, sopranos, Giuseppina Bridelli and Marina De Liso, contraltos – who have developed their interpretations, including the use of contemporaneous embellishments (such as strascino and cercar della nota), with Stefano Aresi. In addition to directing the project, Aresi contributes a stimulating booklet essay for this new Glossa L’amato nome release which will do much for the cause of modern-day historical reinterpretation of Porpora’s chamber vocal music. (Glossa)