Steffani: Danze e Ouvertures I Barocchisti & Diego Fasolis

• 1 Ouverture 02:42
• 2 Menuet 01:05
• 3 Prélude - Très viste 00:26
• 4 Gavotte 00:34
• 5 Menuet 01:17
• 6 Bourrée 00:35
• 7 Gigue 00:52
• 8 Sinfonia 01:58
• 9 Ouverture 02:48
• 10 Air Grave 02:20
• 11 Prélude pour les Démons - Très viste 00:24
• 12 Ouverture 03:44
• 13 Sarabande - Très lentement 01:38
• 14 Sinfonia 04:01
• 15 Ouverture 03:53
• 16 Ritornello tiberino 01:01
• 17 Terremoto 00:49
• 18 Marcia di Creonte 00:42
• 19 Ouverture 02:19
• 20 Les Ombres Grave 04:04
• 21 Ouverture 02:46
• 22 Chaconne 03:10
• 23 Ouverture 03:05
• 24 Gavotte en rondeau 01:18
• 25 Ouverture 01:45
• 26 Air Très viste 00:49
• 27 Menuet 00:50
• 28 Gavotte 00:51
• 29 Air tendre 01:01
• 30 Air Viste 00:58
• 31 Ouverture 03:34
• 32 Gavotte 00:38
• 33 Passpied en Rondeau 01:14
• 34 Gigue 01:20
• 35 Sinfonia 02:25
• 36 Sarabande 02:19
• 37 Premier Rigaudon – Second Rigaudon 01:25
• 38 Gavotta 01:18
• 39 Nymphes I 01:49
• 40 Nymphes IIa 00:53
• 41 Nymphes III 01:26
• 42 Nymphes IIb 00:35
• 43 Introduzione al dramma 04:05
• Total Runtime 01:16:46

Info for Steffani: Danze e Ouvertures

The inspired conductor of Mission directs an album of music from Steffani’s operas as a companion release to Cecilia Bartoli’s Stabat Mater. Mission created great interest in the music of little-known Italian composer Agostino Steffani (1654–1728). Fasolis’s conducting thrust him into the spotlight as one of the most dynamic baroque interpreters working today.

The variety of styles in Steffani’s music continues to surprise. With 43 great tracks of enchanting early-baroque music this collection is set to be another revelation. In his time, Steffani was universally admired for his opera music, and much of the appeal of the works lies in the beauty of his orchestration. The disc opens with seven pieces from his celebrated Orlando and goes on to offer a sparkling array of preludes, gavottes, gigues, airs and much more besides from a wide range of his operatic work. Diego Fasolis draws sparkling performances from period specialists I Barocchisti in music of a composer whose rediscovery is one of the great finds of our time.

“Superbly conducted by Diego Fasolis, these artists make the best case imaginable for Steffani’s music.... Color and texture reign supreme, with instrumental combinations chosen to highlight the overtones in Bartoli’s voice... Given the quality of Steffani’s music, Bartoli’s project might best be regarded as “Mission Triumphant.” (San Francisco Classical Voice on Mission)

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Steffani composed no instrumental works! Although, at the age of twenty, he became organist at the Bavarian court in Munich and, five years later, played the harpsichord in France for Louis XIV and in Turin for the regent of Savoy, he does not seem to have written any keyboard music. Although he was appointed Director of Chamber Music at Munich in 1681, not one piece of instrumental chamber music came from his pen. He restricted his output of compositions to church music, chamber cantatas and duets, and opera.

His concentration on vocal music is not surprising. While some of his Italian contemporaries excelled in both vocal and instrumental composition — Stradella and Vivaldi spring to mind — many limited themselves to one sphere or the other: the phenomenon of a purely “instrumental” composer is exemplified by Arcangelo Corelli, an almost exact contemporary of Steffani. The latter’s focus on vocal music also reflects his musical education. Between the ages of ten and thirteen he was a choirboy at the Basilica del Santo in Padua and sang on the opera stage in Venice. This training bore fruit. In the 1680s he composed five operas at Munich, and in 1688, when he became Kapellmeister at Hanover, he was tasked with composing and directing operas in the magnificent new theatre being built there by Duke Ernst August, the father of Britain’s first Hanoverian king.

Like his exquisite chamber duets, Steffani’s operas were universally admired and carried his name throughout Europe. Of the six full-length works that he created at Hanover in 1689–95, most were revived at court in the year after their premiere and all were translated into German for performance in public between 1695 and 1699 at the Gänsemarkt theatre in Hamburg; the German version of Orlando generoso (1691), Der großmüthige Roland (1696), also achieved partial publication, twenty-four arias and two duets appearing as Die auserlesensten und vornehmsten Arien aus der Opera Roland mit unterschiedlichen Instrumenten. Wie sie vorgestellet auff dem Hamburgischen Schau-Platz (Lübeck, 1699). Further productions followed in Brunswick, Augsburg, Stuttgart and, again, Hamburg. Much of the appeal of these operas lay in the beauty of Steffani’s scores, which skilfully combine the idioms of late seventeenth-century Italian opera with those of contemporary French theatre music. This alluring fusion of styles was absorbed by Reinhard Keiser in Hamburg and, through him, by Handel (who later also studied the scores at first hand) and by other composers in Germany. That Steffani created an “international” musical language in his operas is remarkable.

I Barocchisti:
Fiorenza de Donatis, violin (leader)
Daniela Beltraminelli, violin
Luca Giardini, violin
Elisa Imbalzano, violin
Fabio Ravasi, violin
Andrea Rognoni, violin
Renata Spotti, violin
Alberto Stevanin, violin
Monika Toth, violin
Giovanni de Rosa, viola
Gianni Maraldi, viola
Stefano Marcocchi, viola
Alberto Stevanin, viola
Alessandro Palmeri, cello
Sebastiano Severi, cello
Marco Testori, cello
Vanni Moretto, violin
Giulia Genini, flute
Astrid Knöchlein, flute
Paolo Grazzi, oboe
Astrid Knöchlein, oboe
Alberto Guerra, bassoon
Giulia Genini, bassoon
Paolo Bacchin, trumpet
Riccardo Figaia, trumpet
Manolo Nardi, trumpet
Michele Santi, trumpet
Gabriele Miracle, timpani & percussion
Simona Slaviero, timpani & percussion
Michele Pasotti, theorbo
Giangiacomo Pinardi, theorbo
Gianluca Capuano, keyboard
Francesco Cera, keyboard
Diego Fasolis, keyboard
Diego Fasolis, conductor

Recorded at Auditorio Stelio Molo della Radiotelevisione svizzera, 13–18 January & 23–26 February 2013
Executive Producer: Dominic Fyfe
Producers for RSI: Christian Gilardi & Diego Fasolis
Recording Producer & Engineer: Ulrich Ruscher
Editing: Ulrich Ruscher & Uta Ruscher
Performing Editions: I Barocchisti
Editor: Alberto Stevanin

I Barocchisti
Das Ensemble I Barocchisti wird heute auf internationaler Ebene als Referenzorchester geschätzt, wenn es um die Aufführung alter Musik auf historischen Instrumenten geht. Unter der Leitung von Diego Fasolis übernahm das Orchester das Erbe der von Edwin Loehrer gegründeten Società cameristica di Lugano, welche seit den Fünfzigerjahren eine wesentliche Rolle bei der Wiederentdeckung der Vokal- und Instrumentalwerke des Barock spielte. Die Besetzung der Barocchisti variiert von vier bis 40 Musikern; die Mitglieder sind renommierte Spezialisten, die häufig auch als international anerkannte Solisten auftreten. Das Orchester hat zusammen mit dem Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera unter der Leitung von Fasolis in den letzten Jahren verschiedene Konzertproduktionen und Aufnahmen realisiert, mit Werken von Bach, Cavalli, Galuppi, Gossec, Händel, Mozart, Scarlatti, Paisiello, Pergolesi, Piccinni, Purcell und Vivaldi. Außerdem arbeiten Solisten von internationalem Rang kontinuierlich mit dem Ensemble zusammen, darunter Philippe Jaroussky und Julia Lezhneva, mit denen das Stabat Mater und andere Werke von Pergolesi eingespielt wurden: Die 2013 erschienene CD wurde im Rahmen einer Tournee in Amsterdam, Essen, Baden-Baden und Luzern vorgestellt und 2014 bei den International Classical Music Awards als „Beste Aufnahme des Jahres“ ausgezeichnet. Aus der engen künstlerischen Partnerschaft, die das Orchester seit einigen Jahren mit Cecilia Bartoli verbindet, ging u.a. das multimediale Projekt Mission hervor: Es widmete sich der Wiederentdeckung der Musik von Agostino Steffani und wurde mit einem ECHO Klassik ausgezeichnet und für einen Grammy Award nominiert. Gemeinsam mit den anschließend erschienenen Steffani-CDs der Barocchisti, Stabat Mater und Danze e Ouvertures, erschien Mission in einer exklusiven Sammeledition (The Steffani Project). 2014 wurde mit Bartoli die CD St.Petersburg aufgenommen, auf deren Veröffentlichung eine lange Tournee durch Europa folgte. I Barocchisti sind bei den größten Musikfestivals in Europa und den USA aufgetreten. Bei den Salzburger Festspielen sind sie zu Pfingsten 2015 in Iphigénie en Tauride und Semele sowie im Sommer in der Wiederaufnahme von Glucks Oper zu Gast.

Diego Fasolis
studied in Zurich, Paris and Cremona where he obtained four diplomas with distinction. He began his career in the 80s as a concert organist, performing regularly complete works by Bach, Buxtehude, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Franck and Liszt.

Having acquired a worldwide recognition, Fasolis was appointed Chief conductor of the Vocal and instrumental ensembles of Swiss Radio and Television in 1993. In 1998 he began conducting “I Barocchisti“, a baroque orchestra with period instruments, which he founded with his wife Adriana Fasolis-Brambilla. After her premature death in 2013 he established a charitable foundation in her name to support young musicians. He also works as a guest teacher with leading groups and singers internationally.

Diego Fasolis is seen as a reference interpreters for historically informed music. His versatility and virtuosity are combined with a rigorous style, which is highly appreciated by the public and by international critics and press both in Europe and in the US. He has been working with the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli since 2011, with projects including audio and video recordings as well as major concert tours around the world. Their last project is dedicated to Italian and German authors present in the St. Petersburg archives. Fasolis also conducted Bellini’s Norma in Monte-Carlo starring Cecilia Bartoli as the title role.

A regular guest at the Salzburg Festival for concerts and opera engagements, (the latest being Iphigenie en Tauride), Diego Fasolis also conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Vienna Musikverein, with the Concentus Musicus Wien, and the A. Schoenberg Choir. More recently, La Scala entrusted him with the creation of an orchestra on period instruments to perform Handel’s Il Trionfo del tempo e del Disinganno.

Other highlights among current and future engagements include Tamerlano with Placido Domingo at Teatro alla Scala, Gluck’s Orfeo at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Le Comte Ory at the Zurich Opernhaus, La Finta Giardiniera at Teatro alla Scala, La Cenerentola at the Opéra Royal in Liège, Così fan tutte at Teatro Regio in Turin, Clemenza di Tito at the Opéra de Lausanne and L’Incoronazione di Poppea at the Berlin State Opera.

In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Sacred Music.

With more than 120 CDs released by major international recording companies such as EMI-Virgin, Naïve, Universal Music and Warner Classic, Fasolis received numerous prizes for his commitment in the re-discovery of the operatic repertoire. Prizes include Disco d’Oro, the Grand Prix du Disque for his work on Handel and Vivaldi, Echo Klassic for the opera Artaserse by Leonardo Vinci. In 2014 he was nominated for two Grammy Awards for his work and for the triumphant “Mission” project with works by Agostino Steffani, and in 2015 for the “St. Petersburg” project with Cecilia Bartoli.

Booklet for Steffani: Danze e Ouvertures