Key: CTP Template: CD_1PD2 CTP Template: CD_1PD2 COLOURS No text area Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page CYAN MAGENTA Customer Customer YELLOW Bleed Catalogue No. Catalogue No. BLACK Trim Job Title Page No. BC Job Title Page No. 1 Fold Also available from Avie… CONVERSAZIONI I Cantatas from a Cardinal’s Court 119.5 Andrew Radley countertenor Julian Perkins director Ingenious Jestings Eight Harpsichord Setts by James Nares played by Julian Perkins av2152 120.5 PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED. COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED. ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES. BLEED ALLOWANCE OF 3MM ON TRIMMED EDGES ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES. BLEED ALLOWANCE OF 3MM ON TRIMMED EDGES Key: CTP Template: CD_1PD2 CTP Template: CD_1PD2 COLOURS No text area Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page CYAN MAGENTA Customer Customer YELLOW Bleed Catalogue No. Catalogue No. BLACK Trim Job Title Page No. BC2 Job Title Page No. 13 Fold ONVERSAZIONI Antonio Caldara (c1670–1736) C I Clori, mia bella Clori 19:03 Cantatas from a Cardinal’s Court 1 Sinfonia Largo – Allegro – Minuet 2:53 2 Recitativo 1:03 3 Aria Larghetto 5:25 countertenor Andrew Radley 4 Recitativo 0:31 Julian Perkins harpsichord and director 5 Aria 2:38 Joel Raymond oboe Jonathan Byers cello 6 Recitativo 1:00 Georgia Browne flute Andrew Maginley lute 7 Aria 5:33 Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (1671–1751) Senza il core del mio bene 7:53 119.5 8 Aria Largo 5:25 9 Recitativo 0:50 10 Aria Allegro 1:38 (Pietro) Alessandro (Gaspare) Scarlatti (1660–1725) Clori vezzosa, e bella 7:11 11 Recitativo 0:54 12 Aria Andante Lento 3:16 13 Recitativo 0:47 14 Aria Allegro 2:14 George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) 15 Toccata in G minor, HWV 586 1:20 16 Capriccio in G minor, HWV 483 1:56 (Giuseppe) Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) 17 Sonata in G minor, K 30 Moderato 4:28 120.5 PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED. COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED. ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES. BLEED ALLOWANCE OF 3MM ON TRIMMED EDGES ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES. BLEED ALLOWANCE OF 3MM ON TRIMMED EDGES Key: CTP Template: CD_1PD2 CTP Template: CD_1PD2 COLOURS No text area Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page CYAN MAGENTA Customer Customer YELLOW Bleed Catalogue No. Catalogue No. BLACK Trim Job Title Page No. BC4 Job Title Page No. 15 Fold G. F. Handel Invitation to a conversazione… Vedendo Amor, HWV 175 13:49 18 Recitativo 0:36 IN THE LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, all roads really did lead to Rome for the 19 Aria 5:01 aspiring musician. There, wealthy aristocrats-turned-priests and Catholic nobility from across Europe vied for cultural status through artistic patronage. 20 Recitativo 0:52 In particular, from 1689 the young Pietro Ottoboni (1667–1740) reigned 21 Aria Andante 3:50 supreme among patrons of music. Having been 22 Recitativo 0:34 elevated to the role of cardinal on the ascent of his 23 Aria Allegro 2:30 great-uncle as Pope Alexander VII, the 22-year-old Pietro Metastasio, 24 Recitativo 0:26 Venetian had time and money to indulge his taste whose libretti D. Scarlatti in music; and indulge he did. Although his annual were set by many 25 Sonata in D minor, K 9 Allegro 4:05 income exceeded 50,000 scudi – a princely sum – composers including 119.5 26 Sonata in D major, K 430 Non presto ma a tempo di ballo 3:21 he was reputedly in perpetual debt, such (according Gluck, Handel, G. F. Handel to Charles de Brosses) was his ‘fanatical’ pursuit Hasse, Mozart, Mi palpita il cor, HWV 132c* 12:47 of musical pleasure. Ottoboni’s largesse attracted and Alessandro 27 Recitativo 0:36 many of the best musicians from throughout the Scarlatti, was Cardinal 28 Arioso Allegro 0:42 Italian states and beyond, who composed for and Ottoboni’s godson. 29 Recitativo 0:47 performed in religious services, and for other events 30 Aria Adagio 6:36 such as his weekly ‘academy of music’. Among 31 Recitativo 0:51 these musicians were Ottoboni’s fellow Venetians, Caldara and Albinoni, the Palermese Alessandro Scarlatti (well established in Rome long before Ottoboni’s 32 Aria Allegro 3:15 arrival), his son Domenico, and the Saxon G. F. Handel. * Mi palpita il cor remains close to Handel’s Italian Arcadian works even though it was written We know that some of these musicians met and learned from one another. in London after 1710. The cantata exists in four significantly different versions: HWV 132a Handel encountered Alessandro Scarlatti’s music while in Rome, gaining much is scored for soprano with continuo alone, HWV 132b for soprano with oboe and continuo, from his operatic style, and was engaged in a keyboard ‘duel’ with Domenico HWV 132c for alto with flute and continuo, and HWV 132d for alto with flute, oboe, and con- Scarlatti. Others may have sought out (or been sought by) Ottoboni from afar; tinuo. On this recording we perform HWV 132c, but follow the scoring in HWV 132d by using a flute for the first aria and an oboe for the second, thus creating a fifth version of this cantata. Albinoni dedicated his op. 1 trio sonatas of 1694 to Ottoboni, but it may have 120.5 PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED. COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED. ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES. BLEED ALLOWANCE OF 3MM ON TRIMMED EDGES ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES. BLEED ALLOWANCE OF 3MM ON TRIMMED EDGES Key: CTP Template: CD_1PD2 CTP Template: CD_1PD2 COLOURS No text area Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page Compact Disc Booklet: Single Facing Page CYAN MAGENTA Customer Customer YELLOW Bleed Catalogue No. Catalogue No. BLACK Trim Job Title Page No. BC6 Job Title Page No. 17 Fold been a speculative gift on his part, rather than direct evidence of time spent in Ottoboni; for example, it was stipulated in the rules of one of Queen Christina of Rome. Sweden’s intellectual academies that every meeting end with the performance of While Ottoboni supported music-making of all kinds, he particularly favoured a vocal and an instrumental work. Ottoboni’s hosting of the influential Arcadian dramatic music, for which he often wrote the poetry; in 1705 he was credited Academy from 1690, founded for the purpose of purifying Italian dramatic with having written the texts for an ‘infinity of operas, oratorios, cantatas and poetry, undoubtedly facilitated the commissioning of cantatas. The works on other works’. His first opera, La Statira, was staged in 1690 in the specially this recording may well have been written for performance in one of Ottoboni’s reopened Teatro Tordinona, with music by academies, or for any of the Alessandro Scarlatti. But Ottoboni’s name appeared less formal conversazioni Cardinal Ottoboni’s on the libretto only pseudonymously, as ‘Crateo (or gatherings) hosted by vast music library was Pradelini’ (an anagram of ‘Cardinale Pietro’), since the various princes of the sold after his death. such literary pursuits were supposedly beneath the Church in Rome at this time; The “Manchester dignity of an aristocrat. He might also have wished Caldara, for instance, wrote 119.5 Concerto Part-books” to keep his authorship quiet for religious reasons; nearly 200 cantatas for Prince found their way into opera, in particular, was frequently condemned Ruspoli’s conversazioni over the hands of Charles for its licentiousness, and was subject to regular the period 1709–1716. Jennens, the librettist papal bans in Rome. Nevertheless, Ottoboni’s The cantatas chosen here for Handel’s Messiah. enthusiasm was so great that, even during the long display the genre’s range ban of 1698–1710, he ingeniously contrived ways of musical approaches at to continue performing dramatic music in private, the turn of the eighteenth whether staging oratorios or performing operas unstaged. century. Alessandro Scarlatti’s Another way in which frustrated music lovers could satisfy their desire for Clori vezzosa, e bella, like musical drama was through cantatas. The cantata was the most common secular the opening movement vocal genre in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Italy, its modest scope of Handel’s Mi palpita il performable in almost any setting. By the turn of the century, it usually featured cor, is reminiscent of the a solo singer and comprised two recitative-aria pairs. Significant numbers of early seventeenth-century cantatas were produced for the private gatherings hosted by patrons such as cantata (and opera, for that 120.5 PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR PLEASE NOTE THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CREATED USING SPECIFIC CO-ORDINATES REQUIRED FOR COMPUTER TO PLATE IMAGING AND IS NOT TO BE ALTERED, MOVED OR THE DOCUMENT SIZE CHANGED.