Well, we are having a great February music- wise in Mexico City. Joyce DiDonato gives a recital next tuesday, the Emerson Quartet a couple of Beethoven concerts, and Fabio Biondi returns -never too soon- on the 25th.
This is another stupendous release from this mighty musician. First of all, this is the first late Alessandro Scarlatti opera ever recorded. Most of what we have from him are from his early years in Naples and Rome, but Carlo Re d´Alemagna comes from Florence in the late 1720´s, just a few years before he died, and it´s utterly fascinating. First of all, the great old man kept himself on his toes, this opera can readily be compared to what Vivaldi and Handel were composing at the time, the orchestration is rich and exuberant and the arias are already late baroque, far more complex than what we get from his Rome years. And of course, best of all is that the music is exquisite.
Fabio Biondi, chief conductor of the Stavanger Symphony at the time, manages to get 100% baroque sounds from them, very stylish, and of course it helps that the master himself is playing first violin and that the continuo comes Europa Galante. He also imported marvelous singers like Roberta Invernizzi and Romina Basso. This was recorded live as far back as 2009, but it´s just brilliant that it was released commercially.
