Fabio Bonizzoni / La Risonanza JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Harpsichord Concertos vol. 1

This is the first volume in a complete survey of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, recorded by La Risonanza in one-to-a-part practice performance.

With his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto of 1719, Bach had created the first ever harpsichord concerto. From 1729, in Leipzig, the opportunity arose to continue this experiment: each week at Café Zimmermann he conducted his Collegium musicum in orchestral concerts that lasted around two hours. In the summer of 1733, he took delivery of “a new harpsichord, the like of which has not been heard before around here”. This magnificent instrument, which featured at the Zimmermann concerts, urgently called for concertos to be played by himself as soloist, and even more so his sons and students. Not only in Saxony but also well beyond, Bach was considered to be the absolute authority in all things harpsichord and organ; he thus had to make his own contribution to the emerging genre of the “clavier concerto”. The manuscript of his six harpsichord concertos BWV1052 to 1057 should therefore be understood as a repertoire collection for his Collegium musicum, and as a compositional manifesto.

Within the six concertos, each work takes on a specific function: The D minor concerto is the longest, most virtuosic and most Italianate of the collection. The stormy and sombre concerto is followed by the serene and cantabile E major concerto which, as Joshua Rifkin has convincingly argued, may well be based on a lost oboe concerto in E flat major
Whilst the concertos in D minor and E major are substantial works, the concertos in A major and F minor are far more compact. Both display noticeable influences of the galant style and were therefore probably not written before 1730.

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)

Fabio Bonizzoni / La Risonanza GIUSEPPE SAMMARTINI Concertos for the Organ, Op. 9

The many successes of La Risonanza, the ensemble led from the keyboard by Fabio Bonizzoni (notably with its survey of Handel secular cantatas), can often lead to Bonizzoni’s great talent as a harpsichordist and organist being overlooked. Here, in the delightful Op 9 concertos by Giuseppe Sammartini, we are able to enjoy Bonizzoni’s skill in the latter role, assisted by a small – but decidedly elegant – ensemble of all-stars in which feature the violin playing of David Plantier and Olivia Centurioni. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / Thomas E. Bauer / Furio Zanasi / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Apollo e Dafne

For the final volume in Fabio Bonizzoni’s survey of cantatas written by Georg Friedrich Handel during his stay in Italy, the background scenery moves – like a reflection of the Grand Tour – from Rome to Naples; probably the troubled times in a Rome besieged by Imperial troops during the War of the Spanish Succession may have encouraged the young, itinerant Saxon musician to consider that heading down south was safer and more conducive for his overall career prospects.

It was a time when Handel was conceiving the three highly-charged cantatas to be heard on this disc and he would have been aware that Naples was blest with a bass singer, Domenico Antonio Manna, possessed of a prodigious vocal range, encompassing two octaves and a fifth. And maybe, Handel wrote two of the pieces performed on this disc – Apollo e Dafne and Cuopre tal volta il cielo – with Manna in mind, even if the former cantata was perhaps completed once Handel later had reached Hannover.

Carlo Vitali’s engaging booklet essay colourfully helps to summon up early 18th century Neapolitan culture and Handel’s potential place within it.

Joining Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza for these modern-day realizations of the Baroque Italian musical world experienced by Handel are Furio Zanasi and Thomas Bauer for the bass roles, as well as soprano Roberta Invernizzi, an integral feature of this revelatory and much-praised Handel series since its inception. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / Yetzabel Arias Fernández / Romina Basso / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Olinto pastore

The Accademia degli Arcadi - that thought-provoking and ideas-creating literary circle set up by a group of poets, composers, aristocrats and churchmen, which championed a return to classical (and pastoral) ideals and one of whose keenest members was the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, Handel’s patron in Rome - forms the aesthetic background for this sixth and penultimate release in the series of Italian cantatas by the Saxon composer which Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza are making for Glossa. In an engrossing essay written by Carlo Vitali (which additionally benefits from the counsels of Michael Talbot), the listener/reader is introduced to the social and political references contained within the pastoral texts of Olinto, pastore arcade, Duello amoroso and Alpestre monte, the three Handel cantatas which make up this CD. For this disc Bonizzoni turns again to three of his regular singers (the sopranos Roberta Invernizzi and Yetzabel Arias Fernández and the mezzo soprano Romina Basso) as well as counting upon the services of his exceptional first violinist, the young Swiss Leila Schayegh, an up-and-coming player whose talent is beginning to be an open secret... The spring of 2010 is anticipated as seeing the conclusion of this Handel collection, the grand finale being that marvellous cantata Apollo e Dafne. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / Yetzabel Arias Fernández / Romina Basso / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Clori, Tirsi e Fileno

In May 1707 George Frideric Handel entered into the service of the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, and under his protection, embarked upon a tremendous career. As well as making a name for himself as a spectacular virtuoso on the harpsichord and organ, through his plentiful concerts in the Roman academies, Handel lost no time in also becoming a highly sought-after composer through his felicitous and apparently inexhaustible inspiration. In addition to a significant number of cantatas for solo voice and basso continuo, Handel also involved himself in composing cantatas for larger numbers of voices, combining these with a large supporting orchestral group.

The score of Clori, Tirsi e Fileno is certainly a complex one, as much for its dramatic plotline as for its individually-chosen musical options: the result is a genuine opera in miniature, equipped with real refinement and lightness. Consequently, Clori, Tirsi e Fileno turns - even more so than with other Italian cantata works by the caro Sassone - into an authentic laboratory in which Handel experiments with the most diverse musical and dramatic forms, obtaining by this method a capacity to elaborate that special language which was to locate it firmly within the glories of the theatre, from the past and the present. (GLOSSA)

Maria Grazia Schiavo / Nuria Rial / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Aminta e Fillide

Two new voices join Fabio Bonizzoni's project of recording the entirety of the cantatas with instrumental accompaniment which Handel composed when in Italy: sopranos Nuria Rial and Maria Grazia Schiavo enter the compan of Roberta Invernizzi, Emanuela Galli, Raffaella Milanesi and Salvo Vitale, the singers who we have been able to hear in the first three volumes of the collection. In this fourth instalment (out of a total of seven CDs planned for release up to the end of 2009), we rediscover the patronage of the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, which lay behind the important cantata a due entitled Aminta e Fillide; this was a work which was to provide the composer with a veritable seam of musical material for use, as "borrowings", in his operas Agrippina and Rinaldo - one of the reasons perhaps why this cantata has been rarely performed and even less recorded.

Both Aminta e Fillide and the extensive cantata for soprano, Clori, mia bella Clori, which rounds off this new disc, had their origins in the special environment of the Accademia degli Arcadi, that literary society founded by a group of aristocrats, cardinals, poets, thinkers and composers in 1690, which used to hold its meetings in idyllic spots around Rome. Karl Böhmer's informed notes contained in the CD booklet suggest a number of stimulating points of view about the meaning and significance of these works for the Arcadians. (GLOSSA)

Raffaella Milanesi / Salvo Vitale / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Le Cantate per il Cardinal Ottoboni

In the third instalment in Fabio Bonizzoni’s survey of the secular cantatas with instrumental accompaniment composed by Georg Frideric Handel during his stay in Italy, come a quartet of works associated with the Venice-born maecenas Pietro Ottoboni – including the substantial Ero e Leandro, the libretto for which is plausibly considered to have been written by the Cardinal Ottoboni himself. As well as the seldom-performed cantata for bass, Spande ancora a mio dispetto and Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio scored forsoprano solo, Bonizzoni also directs the Spanish-texted No se emendará jamás.

In this latest outing Bonizzoni continues with his policy of bringing forward accomplished singers with an intense and direct feel for Handel’s Italian output. Where the first two volumes saw contributions from Roberta Invernizzi and Emanuela Galli, here, for this “Ottoboni” release, the spotlight falls on soprano Raffaella Milanesi and bass Salvo Vitale. As before, our understanding of this neglected area of Handel’s genius is enhanced by the accompanying booklet notes. Here they are provided by Livio Marcaletti, an expert on the music of Antonio Bononcini as much as on that of Handel. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / Emanuela Galli / Fabio Bonizzoni / La Risonanza HANDEL Le Cantate per il Marchese Ruspoli

In the autumn of last year Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza embarked on a journey taking a fresh look – musicologically as well as musically – at the chamber cantatas to Italian texts and with instrumental accompaniment composed by Georg Frideric Handel during his stay in Italy. Where the first release on Glossa focused on works associated with Cardinal Pamphili in Rome, this new recording contains pieces – including the dramatic cantata Armida abbandonata and Handel’s ‘own’ Hunt Cantata – originating in the establishment of the Marquis Ruspoli and written for sopranos such as Margherita Durastante and Vittoria Tarquini.

Here it is the Milanese soprano Emanuela Galli who takes centre stage (and she also has taken on the role of Eurydice in Glossa’s recent recording of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo directed by Claudio Cavina). Roberta Invernizzi returns, joining forces with Galli, for Diana cacciatrice. Making use of recent research the booklet notes – written on this occasion by Karl Boehmer – help to illuminate for us Handel’s sojourn in Italy in 1707 and the origins of the five cantatas recorded here. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni HANDEL Le Cantate per il Cardinal Pamphili

The chamber cantata flourished in Italy as a counterpart to public opera and oratorio, cultivated by aristocratic patrons for their personal enjoyment. Perhaps because of its essentially private origins, this pervasive Baroque form remains little known today. During his years in Italy (1706-1710), George Frideric Handel composed nearly 100 cantatas for a series of important patrons, but they have tended to be passed over in favour of his larger operas, oratorios, concertos and orchestral suites. The plan of La Risonanza to perform and record all of the cantatas with instrumental accompaniment (about one-third of the total) is therefore of signal importance for all music lovers, as it will bring this extraordinarily beautiful music once again to life (2006-2009).

This first disc presents four remarkable cantatas from early in Handel’s Italian period: Il delirio amoroso, Tra le fiamme, Figlio d’alte speranze and Pensieri notturni di Filli. Given the intensity, maturity and beauty of the cantatas, it is no surprise that Handel found them useful throughout his life, but now it is finally possible to bring these remarkable works out of Handel’s workroom and give them their own long-overdue hearing. (GLOSSA)

Roberta Invernizzi / Silvia Frigato / Thomas Bauer / La Risonanza / Fabio Bonizzoni G.F. HAENDEL Duetti e Terzetti italiani

Fabio Bonizzoni returns with a further Glossa release dedicated to the chamber vocal output of Georg Friedrich Handel: here, a second volume of duets (and trios), which features the vocal talents of Roberta Invernizzi, Silvia Frigato, Thomas Bauer and Krystian Adam.

Whilst Handel wrote these small-scale vocal works across his career, this new selection focuses on that astonishingly fertile brief stay that the young Saxon made in Italy from 1707-09 (when he also produced many of the cantatas which Bonizzoni has recorded to great critical success for Glossa). These sensual duets and trios are imbued with Handel’s discovery of Italian – especially the Arcadian – culture, which included him hearing and understanding the music of Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. How quickly and successfully Handel developed the chamber duet form is discussed in another of Stefano Russomanno’s detailed explorations of Handel’s music in the booklet essay.

Much of the music for these duets and trios on this recording is scored for soprano and bass singers and Roberta Invernizzi, in particular, is afforded another opportunity to demonstrate her magical reaction to Handel’s responsiveness to the Italian language. Not to be outdone in this respect are also the other vocal solists and of course the experienced continuo team from La Risonanza: Caterina Dell’Angello (cello), Evangelina Mascardi (theorbo) and Fabio Bonizzoni himself (harpsichord). (GLOSSA)

Duetti e Terzetti italiani. pdf