Quella FiammA ARIE ANTICHE ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI 1660–1725 NICOLA PORPORA 1 Già il sole dal Gange from L’honestà negli amori (act i) 1.54 14 Largo mvmt.2 from Cello Concerto in G 3.18 FRANCESCO DURANTE 1684–1755 ALESSANDRO PARISOTTI 1853–1913 2 Danza, danza, fanciulla gentile 1.33 15 Se tu m’ami 3.17 ANDREA FALCONIERI c.1585/6–1656 GIOVANNI LEGRENZI 1626–1690 3 Passacalle No.15 from Il primo libro di canzone, sinfonie, fantasie […] 2.09 16 Che fiero costume from Eteocle e Polinice (act ii) 1.15 GIULIO CACCINI 1551–1618 FRANCESCO CAVALLI 1602–1676 4 Amarilli No.8 from Le nuove musiche 3.24 17 Delizie, contenti from Il Giasone (act i) 1.16 GIACOMO CARISSIMI 1605–1674 ALESSANDRO MARCELLO 1673–1747 5 Vittoria, mio core 3.19 18 Adagio mvmt.2 from Oboe Concerto in D minor, S D935 3.30 ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL 6 O cessate di piagarmi from Pompeo (act ii) 3.02 19 Piangerò la sorte mia from Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17 (act iii) 5.45 GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL 1685–1759 SAMUEL CAPRICORNUS 1628–1665 7 Ah! mio cor, schernito sei from Alcina, HWV 34 (act ii) 5.33 20 Sonata a 3 No.4 from Prothimia suavissima Book 2 3.49 FRANCESCO CONTI c.1681/2–1732 JEAN-PAUL-ÉGIDE MARTINI 1741–1816 Doppo tante e tante pene Cantata for voice and basso continuo 21 Plaisir d’amour (La Romance du chevrier) 3.38 8 I. Aria: Doppo tante e tante pene 2.34 9 II. Recitative: Dubbio di vostra fede 0.49 GIOVANNI PAISIELLO 1740–1816 10 III. Aria: Quella fiamma 2.50 22 Nel cor più non mi sento from La Molinara (L’amor contrastato), R 1.76 (act ii) 3.04 GIOVANNI BATTISTA BONONCINI 1670–1747 11 Per la gloria d’adorarvi from Griselda (act ii) 2.21 FRANCESCO DURANTE 23 Introduction: Poco andante from Concerto No.1 in F minor 1.42 NICOLA PORPORA 1686–1768 12 Adagio — Allegro mvmt.1 from Sonata a 3, Op.2 No.3 2.49 ANTONIO CESTI 1623–1669 24 Intorno all’idol mio from Orontea (act ii) 3.50 FRANCESCO DURANTE 13 Vergin, tutto amor 2.43 ANTONIO CALDARA 1670–1736 25 Sebben, crudele from La costanza in amor vince l’inganno (act i) 2.42 73.20 Nathalie Stutzmann contralto · musical direction Orfeo 55 Anne Camillo, Nicola Cleary, Thelma Handy, Martha Moore first violins Lucien Pagnon, Fanny Paccoud, Chingyun Tu second violins Marco Massera, Marie Legendre violas · Patrick Langot, Anna Carewe cellos Pasquale Massaro double bass · Shai Kribus oboe · Michele Fattori bassoon Miguel Rincón theorbo, guitar · Marie-Domitille Murez harp · Camille Delaforge harpsichords, organ Orchestrations: Orfeo 55 (1, 7–10, 17–20); Laurent Courbier (2, 6, 11–13, 16, 21–22) / Camille Delaforge (2, 5–6, 11–13, 16, 21–22) for Orfeo 55; Marie-Domitille Murez (24) / Patrick Langot (24) for Orfeo 55; Miguel Rincón (25) for Orfeo 55 Publishers: C Johan Tufvesson (3); C Schola cantorum (4); C Ricordi (15); Ed. Roger Blanchard, C Heugel & Cie (23) THE SCHOOL OF BEL CANTO Practically every singer is familiar with the collection of Arie antiche compiled by Alessandro Parisotti. It is more or less the equivalent of Czerny or Favourite Classics for Pianists; it is both a series of exercises and an enjoyable way of approaching each part of the repertoire. Nathalie Stutzmann recalls: “I began working on Arie antiche at the very beginning of my studies, but it was only recently that I became fully aware of the astonishing amount of musicological work that Parisotti put into it.” The collection contains numerous arias by Caccini, Scarlatti, Caldara, Carissimi, and many others, together forming an extraordinarily rich set. It comprises three volumes with piano accompaniment, first released by the famous publishing house Ricordi in 1890: an unusual choice for the period, since such works no longer generated much interest; only works by Handel and Monteverdi were still remembered, and those only by the few. Yet Parisotti was able to identify the educational value inherent in each of these pieces. And while musicologists may well continue to turn their noses up at his arrangements for voice and piano, those very arrangements have served as the vector for the continued transmission of the art of Baroque bel canto. “For this recording, we wanted to find Parisotti’s original sources”, Stutzmann explains, “so my team and I painstakingly scoured a number of different library collections.” This reverse musicological work has led to orchestral versions with basso continuo which bring a richness and a different perspective to these magnificent and effective arias. “I like to plan my programmes as I would a voyage”, says Stutzmann. “We have interspersed this recording with a number of 17th- and 18th-century pieces and sonatas which serve as stops on the journey, as breathing space.” But who was Alessandro Parisotti (1853–1913)? A composer and musicologist, his formative years as an academic were spent in some of the most prestigious musical institutions in Rome. His career began in the shadow of the Vatican: he learned music and singing in the Cappella Giulia (San Pietro), a church music institution which could boast Palestrina, Mazzochi, Lorenzi, Jommelli and Domenico Scarlatti among its former choirmasters. The young Parisotti was taught by Salvatore Meluzzi, the organist at the Vatican who set in train an important reform of church music, the Cecilian Movement. Its aim was to restore Catholic vocal music to its former glory by looking back to the compositions written by 16th-century and early-17th- century masters of the genre. In 1880, Parisotti joined the ranks of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome as a composer and teacher. His training in the Vatican gives us some idea of the sources to which he had access when compiling his collection. He must have been familiar with composers such as Caldara and Cesti, whose work is represented in the Arie antiche. His teacher, Meluzzi, also taught Alessandro Moreschi, the last of the castrati, and the only one to have left behind a recording (on wax) which gives us a sense of what these voices sounded like. The fact that Parisotti had studied alongside the final exponents of the art of the castrati meant that he was in the privileged position of having considerable knowledge of that vocal tradition, which emerged during the lifetime of the Neapolitan composer Nicola Porpora. This very talented rival of Handel had mentored the greatest castrati of the 18th century, Farinelli most notable among them. Once a castrato’s singing career came to an end, he would invariably pass on knowledge of the art to the next generation: for example Girolamo Crescentini taught Baroque bel canto to Giuditta Pasta and Isabella Colbran (Rossini’s wife). That same bel canto was passed on, in Parisotti’s time, by the influential García family, whose most famous representative was the mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran. The Arie antiche thus represent an art whose roots lay in the lyricism of the Seicento, which was itself underpinned by the astonishing vocal abilities of the Neapolitan castrati. If they had not passed on these techniques, such composers as Rossini, Meyerbeer or Bellini would not have been able to flourish in the way they did. It is this uninterrupted transmission which underpinned the bel canto tradition. Looking through Parisotti’s collection in the company of Nathalie Stutzmann offers a glimpse into the classroom of the budding opera singer. Each aria chosen by Parisotti corresponds to a particular vocal challenge. “Let’s take, for example, ‘Già il sole dal Gange’ by Alessandro Scarlatti. This aria is 3 intended to teach breath control. Parisotti was aware of its difficulty, especially in the melismas, each of which has to be sung in a single breath. For beginners, Parisotti added words to certain long phrases originally intended to be sung on one vowel and without any intermediate breaths, in order to make the aria easier and leave the pupil time to master breath control. Hence, this is still a beautiful aria, but also an aid to the gradual acquisition of an important technique.” “Per la gloria d’adorarvi” by Bononcini, one of Handel’s London rivals, is typical of what we might give to beginners. “The music is easy to read, and the tessitura not too wide. The only real difficulty lies in the octave leap. The aria begins on the A above middle C, so it sits at the very centre of the voice; it’s the perfect tessitura for warming up.” It was Florentine singers like Caccini who established these early singing techniques at the beginning of the 17th century. “‘Amarilli’ contains long, quiet notes for which you must place the voice perfectly — as we like to say, ‘be in the sound’ — and control your vibrato. It’s a typical ‘cleaning aria’ — for ‘cleaning’ the singer’s instrument.” Parisotti’s arrangement is, incidentally, notable for its almost comical “cleaning-up” of certain words. “The aria contains the erotic metaphor of the ‘sword’, which was judged to be too alarming for the girls of the early 20th century…” The same kind of censorship was applied to Francesco Cavalli’s “Delizie, contenti”: “The verses in which the woman asks her lover to stop his caresses because she can no longer bear them were discreetly replaced.” Caldara’s “Sebben, crudele” allows the singing student to discover poetic symmetry. “It was the first aria I worked on as a singer”, Stutzmann recalls. “I must admit, it’s sort of like Proust’s ‘madeleine’ for me: hearing it instantly takes me back…” Giacomo Carissimi had a profound influence on the vocal compositions of Marc-Antoine Charpentier.