Francesco Cavalli was the most successful Venetian opera composer of the mid-seventeenth century. This new production is orchestrated and conducted by the internationally reputed baroque specialist Federico Maria Sardelli. It is directed by the young Frenchwoman Mariame Cl+ªment, who is currently making a name for herself with her infectious directing in German and French opera houses. The title role is sung by the promising counter-tenor Christophe Dumaux.

After many years of creating intensely original solo piano and song repertoire, Robert Schumann made a relatively late entry into chamber music. The piano trio genre was initially inspired by Mendelssohn who was considered by Schumann to be ‘the 19th-century Mozart.’ After testing his creative freedom with the Phantasiestücke Schumann increasingly relished the sonorities and musical discourse of strings and piano, and from the effusive energy and ardour that shines through in Op. 63 to the deep convictions expressed in Op. 110, these works include pages of incredible lyricism and pure enchantment for which Schumann had no rivals.

Beethoven’s symphonic cycle is one of the most quintessential in the Western classical canon. They chart a course from the influence of Haydn and Classical models in the early symphonies, through works of startling innovation and the birth of Romanticism, to his monumental Ninth Symphony for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Zubin Mehta conducts the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in these live recordings from 2021/22.

Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier was written at a time when composers had begun to expand the limited tonal compass of keyboard instruments through far wider use of keys and, ultimately, equal temperament. The 48 preludes and fugues that constitute The Well-Tempered Claver are composed in a wide range of styles, and the work remains one of the most important and influential in Western classical music. Francesco Cera is a prominent Italian early music specialist and he plays on a copy of a Hemsch harpsichord of 1736, using his own personal tuning. For Book II he employs the Altnickol edition of the score which includes numerous variants.

A native of Genoa, Luigi Cortese merged his experiences from studies in Paris and tuition from Alfredo Casella in Italy to create a personal idiom of lively intelligence and refined taste, largely avoiding the temptations of passing musical fashions. Salmo VIII is one of Cortese’s most important and profound works, while Cinque Pezzi is his wonderfully expressive final piano opus. This programme also contains two of the very few documents of his own piano playing in historical recordings of the Suite Française, probably Cortese’s finest achievement in the piano field, and the poetic Sonata for cello and piano.

Both Pizzetti and Stravinsky were drawn to the subject of Oedipus Rex, but in very different contexts. The 24-year-old Pizzetti was commissioned to write Three Orchestral Preludes for use in a theatrical production. He wrote with an austere sense of orchestral colour, devoid of impressionism that favours the vaguely archaic, with modal inflections. Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio was written in his neo-Classical style, with a central role for narrator. In a stark, stylised and formal setting, the use of Latin, and Stravinsky’s instruction for the leading characters to wear masks, add timeless, impersonal elements to a work that culminates in catharsis.

Italian composer Licinio Refice was ordained as a priest in 1905, and his achievements as a composer sometimes led to conflict with the Catholic authorities. Cecilia was his first opera inspired by sacred themes, but even as a gloriously melodious azione sacra it took many years before a theatre production was possible. This ‘song of Cecilia’ narrates her martyrdom after refusing to renounce her Christian faith – it was an immediate and sensational success with audiences at its premiere in 1934. With its flowing and indisputably beautiful blend of Gregorian antiquity with verismo drama, Cecilia has retained an enduring and widespread popularity.

In the last decade, research in the Genoa archives has revealed a series of important manuscripts, one of which is Saverio Mercadante’s Messa solenne. This magnificent score requires four vocal soloists, a male choir – women were then forbidden to sing in church – and a large orchestra with extensive concertante roles for cor anglais and violin. It was premiered in January 1868, two years before Mercadante’s death, and shows the composer’s artistic maturity at its peak: opulent orchestration, extensive counterpoint, intricate instrumental textures, rich lyricism and fugal mastery. This world première recording amplifies the significance of the Genoese musical tradition.

Robert Schumann was a modern musician in opposition to the formality of the German musical world – his Fantasie of 1836 is a noble homage to Beethoven as well as a love song to his future wife Clara Wieck. The Albumblätter (‘Album Leaves’) is an extraordinary set of short pieces that range in content from dramatic and dreamy moments of lost youth to a delightful lullaby for his daughter Marie, while the brief Canon über ‘An Alexis’ is an early piece reflecting Schumann’s fascination with Bach.

Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos is one of the early 20th century’s most peculiar operatic works. Its narrative derives from the famous myth of Ariadne, who is abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos and eventually falls in love with the god Bacchus. This opera is, however, preceded by an extensive modern prologue in which a young Composer finds himself tortured by egotistical artists complicating preparations for the opera’s production in an eternal struggle between comedy and high art.

True lovers of opera know that Verdi’s Ballo in maschera was originally set in Stockholm, at the Court of Gustav III, King of Sweden. That first version was censured for political reasons and Verdi was forced to change names, setting and several passages of the score. But now, on the initiative of Philip Gosset and Ilaria Narici, musicologists of Casa Ricordi, Gustavo III has been reconstructed, thanks, also, to the recent rediscovery of some Verdian manuscripts.

Mauro D’Alay was a native of Parma. His fame as a violinist and composer took him all over Europe, and he was employed for many years at the prestigious court of Philip V of Spain. As with the Concertos, Op. 1 (Dynamic CDS7892.02) these recordings include world premieres from manuscripts mostly found in the Dresden Sächsische Landesbibliothek. These concertos are formally based on models by Vivaldi, but D’Alay’s style is freer, at times incorporating a more ‘modern’ galant fashion in discoveries such as the beautiful and unique Concerto in D minor, and in pieces dedicated to the famous Venetian violinist, ‘Maestra’ Anna Maria della Pietà.

Building on the success of Cavalleria rusticana, Pietro Mascagni’s commedia lirica L’amico Fritz was given seven encores and thirty-five curtain calls at its premiere in Rome in 1891. Considered by critics to be one of Mascagni’s best operas, the story is that of a love triangle involving the wealthy Fritz Kobus and Suzel, daughter of one of his tenants, who together sing the famous ‘Cherry Duet’ in Act II. Returning to the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence for the first time since 1941, this production was acclaimed for its superb cast and astonishingly effective modern setting. Building on the success of Cavalleria rusticana, Pietro Mascagni’s commedia lirica L’amico Fritz was given seven encores and thirty-five curtain calls at its premiere in Rome in 1891. Considered by critics to be one of Mascagni’s best operas, the story is that of a love triangle involving the wealthy Fritz Kobus and Suzel, daughter of one of his tenants, who together sing the famous ‘Cherry Duet’ in Act II. Returning to the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence for the first time since 1941, this production was acclaimed for its superb cast and astonishingly effective modern setting.

Nicola Porpora was a composer who helped to turn Italian opera into the most successful and spectacular genre in Europe. One of the few luminaries of the ‘Neapolitan School’ to actually be born in Naples, Porpora wrote L’Angelica, a serenade for six voices and instruments, to a libretto by the young Pietro Metastasio in 1720. The work was composed for the birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christine, wife of Charles VI, and its plot is comedic, focusing on the travails of a couple in love. The opera’s success was immediate, resulting in the commissioning of further works that would lead to ever more glamorous successes for Porpora in Venice, London, Dresden and Vienna.

Soprano Nadine Sierra took on major operatic roles early in her career, winning several major awards and achieving substantial international popularity. She won the Beverly Sills Artists Award in 2018 and released her debut album, There's a Place for Us, that same year. Sierra was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on May 14, 1988. Her father was a firefighter of Puerto Rican and Italian background; her mother, of Portuguese descent, was the daughter of a frustrated singer in Lisbon.