MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
RECORDING OF THE MONTH



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS MDT

Alessandro SCARLATTI (1660 - 1725)
La Santissima Trinita - Oratorio (1715) [67.27]
Fede – Roberta Invernizzi (soprano)
Amor divino – Veronique Gens (soprano)
Teologia – Vivica Genaux (mezzo)
Infedelta – Paul Agnew (tenor)
Tempo – Roberto Abbondanza (bass)
Europa Galante/Fabio Biondi
rec. 14-17 October 2003, Notre Dame du Liban, Paris
VIRGIN CLASSICS 628647 2 [67.27]

Experience Classicsonline


La Santissima Trinita was one of the last of Alessandro Scarlatti’s forty or so oratorios. It was performed in Naples in May 1715. By 1715 Scarlatti’s career had taken him to Rome, Naples, Venice and Tuscany. In 1708 he returned to Naples and was based there for the remainder of his career. In fact, most of Scarlatti’s oratorios were written for Rome. The genre had originated there and it continued to flourish, nourished by the fact that the Popes were opposed to opera per se. In fact many oratorios had a dramatic structure not unlike opera and were effectively sacred operas. Scarlatti’s previous efforts in the genre had been mainly either dramatic settings of Old Testament subjects such as Judith or Cain, or paraphrases of the New Testament.

La Santissima Trinita is different to these, instead of a dramatic biblical theme, it takes as its subject a theological discussion on the mysteries of the Holy Trinity. This type of oratorio originated in the 17th century and by the early 18th was becoming quite rare. Though in fact Handel’s Trionfo el Tempo e del Disinganno (from 1707) and Caldara’s Vaticini del Pace (from 1712) are similar in structure.

The work was intended to be an aid to religious learning, the idea being that these things are easier if they contain an element of enjoyment. This clothing of learning in a lighter garb was something that the Jesuits were quite keen on. It is probably that La Santissima Trinita was acted out in front of the altar at one of the Conservatories where castrati were trained.

Whilst the libretto might be rather dry, the music is anything but. Scarlatti seems to have used all of his charms to elucidate the text and the result is a charming and involving work. Amazingly he uses quite small forces to do this: five soloists accompanied by strings and continuo, singing alternating arias and recitatives with the occasional duet and a final quintet. In terms of textures, Scarlatti introduces elements of the concerto grosso to provide a wonderful variety.

As might be expected given the 18th century emphasis on high voices, the higher voices are the most important. Fede (Faith), soprano, gets five arias and four duets; Amor divino (Divine Love), soprano, gets four arias and two duets, Teologia (Theology), mezzo-soprano, gets four arias and one duet, Infedelta (Faithlessness), tenor, gets three arias and one duet, with Tempo (Time), bass, receiving just three arias. The oratorio is in two parts and there would have been a sermon between the two.

The musical style is primarily operatic and the original singers would have found Scarlatti’s arias not very much different to those in his operas. Despite the rather dry tone of the libretto, Scarlatti creates a rather dramatic whole. The musical material is surprisingly varied and the singers make the most of it. This is certainly no sober religious offering, but a lively and dramatic piece.

This recording was first issued in 2004 and is one of a number of recordings of Scarlatti’s oratorios made by Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante. There is an extremely strong cast, with Roberta Invernizzi as Fede, Veronique Gens as Amor divino, Vivica Genaux as Teologia, Paul Agnew as Infedelta and Roberto Abbondanza as Tempo.

The results are as ideal as could be. Scarlatti’s imagination seems to have been amazingly fertile given the rather limited palate of colours that he had available. Time and again I found details and textures which delighted, such as the aria Teologia accompanied just by two cellos and continuo. The instrumental playing is of a fine order with some lovely solo playing from the solo instrumental quartet (Fabio Biondi, Andrea Rognoni, Stefano Marcocchi and Maurizio Naddeo).

All three high voices, Invernizzi, Gens and Genaux, have their moments in the spotlight and all three do not fail to delight. Agnew makes an impassioned Infedelta with Abbondanza as a fine Tempo.

But much as I enjoyed the work, I would rather have liked to know what was going on. For this re-issue Virgin have omitted the libretto and though there is a fine article on the work, there is no detailed synopsis.

This disc must rank as one of my discoveries of the year; some very fine singing and playing, combined with a work which seems to have an abundance of variety, displaying Scarlatti’s genius at its best. Just don’t ask what’s going on.

Robert Hugill


 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.