CORO The Sixteen Edition CORO cor16060 Musique pour Mazarin! Qui a le coeur a tout Au f Wi e n e r Ar t le Jardin Secret “...there's a real vibrancy and freshness to these performances that Music from the compels one to hit the 'repeat' button for virtually every track...Musique Habsburg pour Mazarin! is an auspicious debut indeed.” Imperial Court Five stars ***** goldberg cor16073 The SixteenCORO The Sixteen Edition CORO The Essential Collection -Sounds Sublime 2 CDs The Fairy Queen Handel: Dixit Dominus The EssentialHenry Collection Purcell (2 CD set) Steffani:(2 CD Stabat set) Mater CORO Based on Shakespeare's CORO The Sixteen adds to 2 CDs A Midsummer Night's its stunning Handel Purcell Handel (2 CD set) The Fairy Queen The Fairy Queen Dream, The Fairy Queen collection with a was composed in 1691/2 Dixit Dominus brand new recording The and remains without Steffani of his Dixit Dominus Stabat Mater Some of the most celebrateddoubt one of Purcell's recordingsset alongside a little The Sixteen greatest works adding his The Sixteen know treasure - harry christophers magic, wit and sensuality harry christophers Agostino Steffani’s Sixteen from Harry Christopherscor16005 to that of the andplay. cor16076his award-Stabat Mater. Compılatıon by: Robin Tyson - podiummusic.co.uk winning ensemble, Re-masterıng this: Matt Howelldisc (Floating Earth)provides a Cover ımage: The Concert of Angels -, by Gaudenzio Ferrari (/0-) detail of fresco in the Sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Saronno, Italy Sounds The Bridgeman Art Library definitive collection of Nationality/copyright familiar status: Italian/out classics of copyright Desıgn: Andrew Giles - [email protected] le JardinElizabeth Secret Dobbin - soprano For further information about recordings on CORO or live performances and tours by Sublime and lesser-known treasures.The Sixteen, call +44 (0) 20 7488 2629 or email [email protected] 2009 The Sixteen Productions Ltd. THE VOICES OF © 2009 The Sixteen Productions Ltd. Made in Great Britain The Sixteen Sofie Vanden Eynde · David Blunden To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs visit HARRY CHRISTOPHERS www.thesixteen.com cor16073 Romina Lischka · Marian Minnen To find out more about CORO recordings and to buy CDs, visit www.thesixteen.com cor16074 he Viennese imperial court of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries occupied a central place in European power and politics and nothing Au f Wi e n e r Ar t symbolized this position more effectively than the renowned musical life of Music from the Habsburg Imperial Court Tthe sparkling Habsburg court. The imperial family itself had an insatiable appetite for fine music and brought to Vienna an enviable line-up of Europe’s greatest 1 composers and performers of the time. This enabled an extraordinarily diverse Leopold I (1640-1705): Ah quanto è vero 4.01 (from Il Pomo d'Oro by Antonio Cesti (1623-69)) musical life to flourish in Vienna, bringing together different musical traditions 2 from all over the continent. Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676): Infelice che ascolto? (from Giasone) 8.44 3 Jacques de Saint Luc (1616-1710): Tombeau de François Ginter 3.11 Particularly prized were the imported Italian composers who brought with them 4 all the most important operatic conventions and innovations from Italy and realised Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (1623-1680): Fliesse, fliesse bach der Threnen 4.51 (from Stärcke der Lieb) them in the lavish productions of the court theatre. Notable compositions from 5 all over Europe were likewise imported, contributing to the enormous treasure of Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667): Partita auff Die Maÿerin (FbWV 606) 7.52 manuscripts collected by the Habsburgs over many decades, a collection which 6 Leopold I: Wie dringen dan auf mich 2.19 remains so important for us today. The great Austrian composers and performers (from Die vermeinte Brueder und schwesterlibe) were encouraged and supported, sent abroad to study (mostly to Italy) then proudly 7 Georg Muffat (1653-1704): Chaconne 4.47 used as cultural ambassadors. Another vital facet of the musical life of the court was 8 Antonio Sartorio (1630-1680): Crudo serpe (from Orfeo) 2.05 the music-making based on religious devotion and for private enjoyment. 9 Johann Kasper Kerll (1627-1693): Toccata 3 4.25 All of this did not simply benefit the Habsburgs - and us - culturally, but also sent bl Antonio Sartorio: Son amante ma sfortunato (from Orfeo) 3.11 out an important political message; any court which could sustain such a level of bm Antonio Draghi (1635-1700): Il destin gia s'è placato (from Leonida in Tegea) 2.26 cultural life, attract the service of so many notable musicians and afford the operatic Johann Schenk (b.1656): Sonata VI “L’Echo du Danube” (Extracts) spectacles which were the norm of the court, must be of singular importance and bn i. Adagio, Allegro, Adagio 4.48 quality. This is exactly the message they wanted to send. This recording provides a bo ii. Presto, Adagio, Aria Largo, Vivace, (Aria) Largo, Allegro, Largo, (Aria) Largo 8.15 taste of this rich musical world, including dramatic operatic music written to impress bp iii. Aria Adagio (Sarabande), Giga 4.19 on the public stage, music of religious devotion, and intimate music written for the bq Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741): So che piace (from Il Fonte della Salute) 7.07 enjoyment of the connoisseur. br Johann Joseph Fux: Rondinella (from Orfeo ed Euridice) 4.13 le Jardin Secret Total playing time 77.32 2 3 Music at the Imperial Court of Vienna in the composers for the Venetian opera expresses his decision to die, too. The stage after Cavalli. This work was aria is written in the most popular seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries performed there in 1672/3 and one form of the seventeenth century, ABB, of the surviving scores came to the with a sequential reiteration of the fter the very early introduction decades it was performed in many imperial library in Vienna, but was not second half of the text on a higher Aof the genre at the imperial court Italian theatres from Milan to Naples. part of the personal music collection harmonic degree. in Vienna around 1620, Italian opera A score of this opera came into the of Leopold I. The well-known story became a staple of court musical personal music collection of Emperor of Orpheus and Euridice is modified The same mythological subject life and was performed on special Leopold, although a performance of in this version by the addition of the (but with a plot variation) was set occasions in the decades following. But the opera in Vienna is unlikely. The characters of Aristeo (the brother of to music by Johann Joseph Fux, the it was not until after the coronation borrowing of complete works from the Thracian singer) and his beloved Hofkapellmeister of Emperor Karl VI of Emperor Leopold I in 1658 that Italy in Vienna was certainly not the Autonoe, thereby adapting the famous (reigned 1712-1740). In 1715 (the year opera became a regular court event, norm; generally speaking the works story to Venetian operatic conventions. of his appointment to this post) Fux, with performances at Carnival, on the performed in Vienna in this period Aristeo, a role written for a soprano a farmer’s son from Styria, composed birthdays or namedays of the imperial were those written by the composers castrato, is in love with Euridice but Orfeo ed Euridice for the birthday of family or on other occasions such as employed by the court. With the long this love is unreciprocated. He laments the emperor on 1 October. In 1728, this marriages or birth celebrations. lament “Infelice che ascolto” from the his unhappy lot in both strophes of the componimento da camera was revived. last scene of the opera – part recitative, aria “Son amante ma sfortunato”, with In the hope of her return to the living From the time immediately preceding part aria over a gradually descending its very simple, lyrical, triple movement, and to Orfeo, Euridice sings to him the this period of opera mania stems ostinato bass – Queen Isifile pleads the repetition of the short first lines at da capo aria “Rondinella che tal volta” the highly successful opera Giasone with her betrothed, Giasone, to leave the end of both verses (creating a in which she metaphorically compares by the best known opera composer her rival Medea and return to her. short refrain), and a ritornello before, herself to a swallow set-free and to in the generation following Claudio in-between and after each verse. In a meandering stream. The cello part, Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli. Similar circumstances surround the the second act, Euridice is bitten by in both its accompaniments and solo Cavalli composed the opera in 1649 opera L’ O r f e o by the Venetian Antonio a snake while Aristeo is courting her interludes, imitates the warbling of for Venice. In the ensuing four Sartorio, one of the most important and in the aria “Crudo serpe”, he bird song and the babbling of a brook. 4 5 When Emperor Leopold I set about niece of the Emperor. The opera was at the 1679 outbreak of the plague, of an Italian, musico-dramatic planning the celebrations for his first of such massive dimensions that its the imperial court moved to Prague performance staged on Good Friday marriage, he added to his regular performance had to be divided over and later to Linz. In November 1680, or Maundy Thursday, set in front of a musical forces an opera ensemble two days. In the opera, Venus wins the the empress’ courtly ladies and her recreation of the holy sepulchre with from Innsbruck (which had for many famous beauty contest and supports stepdaughter the archduchess Maria reflections on the death of Christ.