Fabio Bonizzoni

For as much as Fabio Bonizzoni is drawn to the splendours of Baroque music for voices and orchestra – as demonstrated through his award-winning recordings with La Risonanza – his keyboard-playing instincts are constantly urging him to tackle masterpieces of the keyboard repertory. Most recently having applied his musical insight and virtuosity to Bach’s 'Die Kunst der Fuge', Bonizzoni now pits himself against another, albeit earlier, Baroque master in Girolamo Frescobaldi.

Frequently-cited as being as important for keyboard music as Monteverdi was for vocal and dramatic fare, the genius of the Ferrara-born Frescobaldi was amply recognised when working in Rome and Florence – periods when he published (and revised) the two books of toccatas (but including canzonas and partitas or variations sets) recorded by Bonizzoni here. Frescobaldi’s toccatas allow for, and draw from Bonizzoni, great interpretative flexibility, calling for rhythmic freedom, not to say drama and emotion. Indeed, Bonizzoni, clearly mindful of the new demands of the seconda prattica in Frescobaldi’s time, likens the toccatas to being madrigals without words: poetry lies at the heart of his performances.

This new recording from Glossa has Bonizzoni playing on a splendid modern copy of an Italian Baroque harpsichord and on the idiosyncratic organ of the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua. Along the way, Bonizzoni has puzzled out, and describes in the booklet, how best to draw out the sound appropriate for Frescobaldi’s music from this mysterious instrument.

Continuing his captivating survey of the Baroque serenata, Fabio Bonizzoni now focuses on one of the “occasional” works – with music at a magnificently-high level throughout – written by Antonio Vivaldi when in Venice: 'La Senna festeggiante'.

What animated Vivaldi to compose a work apparently extolling the virtues of the River Seine in Paris? The story goes, as described by Michael Talbot in his exemplary accompanying essay, that the serenata was written in 1726 jointly to honour the French king, Louis XV (on his name day), Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (then the Protector of the Affairs of France at the Vatican) and the French Ambassador in Venice, the Comte de Gergy; and bringing in the river to heap Baroque praise on the Sun King’s great-grandson.

An unmistakeably Vivaldian score (complete with self-borrowings and “loans” from others), the composer nonetheless makes plentiful musical allusions to his Gallic theme and setting through the music of the three named vocalists – The Golden Age, Virtue and the Seine – and through the instrumental accompaniment, handled deftly and gloriously here by Bonizzoni and La Risonanza. The singers, Yetzabel Arias Fernández, Martín Oro and Sergio Foresti, capture the spirit of the allegorical and fluvial characters superbly in this new Glossa recording, which was made at the Abbaye de Saint-Michel en Thiérache (also the setting for La Risonanza’s earlier recording of Alessandro Scarlatti’s Serenate a Filli).

By the time that Alessandro Scarlatti was writing the two serenatas recorded here by Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza and inaugurating an exciting new series on Glossa, that celebratory cantata form, often employing allegorical characters, had been in existence for a mere half century. Scarlatti, as Bonizzoni says, “was one of the main sources of inspiration for Handel whilst the latter was in Italy, and this creates a real continuity with what we have been doing in the recent past”; notably the much-admired septet of recordings devoted to the Saxon composers Italian chamber cantatas. That sense of continuity extends to the fact that the two works on this new disc – Serenata a Filli and Le muse Urania e Clio lodano le bellezze di Filli – were written in Rome in 1706 and probably for the same patron in Francesco Maria Ruspoli who furthered Handel’s own career. Fresh from his harpsichord recording of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge, Fabio Bonizzoni now, with the subtle and stylish instrumentalists of La Risonanza, is not only choosing to illuminate an unexplored genre on record, but is also shedding light on an unknown facet of Alessandro Scarlatti’s own prodigious output. Here, the serenatas are given dramatic vitality by regular partners in Bonizzoni’s artistry: sopranos Emanuela Galli and Yetzabel Arias Fernández and countertenor Martín Oro. As well as the elder Scarlatti producing examples of these courtly 'dramatic cantatas' future releases on this new series will demonstrate the quality of the contributions in the serenata form by Handel himself and also by Antonio Vivaldi.

For the final volume in Fabio Bonizzoni’s survey of cantatas written by Handel during his stay in Italy, the background scenery moves – like a reflection of the Grand Tour – from Rome to Naples; probably the troubled times in a Rome besieged by Imperial troops during the War of the Spanish Succession may have encouraged the young, itinerant Saxon musician to consider that heading down south was safer and more conducive for his overall career prospects.

It was a time when Handel was conceiving the three highly-charged cantatas to be heard on this disc and he would have been aware that Naples was blessed with a bass singer, Domenico Antonio Manna, possessed of a prodigious vocal range, encompassing two octaves and a fifth. It is possible that Handel wrote two of the pieces performed on this disc – Apollo e Dafne and Cuopre tal volta il cielo – with Manna in mind, even if the former cantata was perhaps completed after Handel had reached Hannover. Carlo Vitali’s engaging booklet essay colourfully helps to summon up early 18th century Neapolitan culture and Handel’s potential place within it. Joining Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza for these modern-day realisations of the Baroque Italian musical world experienced by Handel are Furio Zanasi and Thomas Bauer for the bass roles, as well as soprano Roberta Invernizzi, an integral feature of this revelatory and muchpraised Handel series since its inception.

The Accademia degli Arcadi - that thought-provoking and innovative literary circle set up by a group of poets, composers, aristocrats and churchmen, which championed a return to classical (and pastoral) ideals and one of whose keenest members was the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, Handel's patron in Rome - forms the aesthetic background for this sixth and penultimate release in the series of Italian cantatas by the Saxon composer which Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza are making for Glossa. In an engrossing essay written by Carlo Vitali, which benefits from the counsels of Michael Talbot, the reader is introduced to the social and political references contained within the pastoral texts of Olinto, pastore arcade, Duello amoroso and Alpestre monte, the three Handel cantatas which make up this CD. Bonizzoni turns again to three of his regular singers as well as counting upon the services of his exceptional first violinist, the young Swiss Leila Schayegh, an up-and-coming player whose talent is undisputed. The spring of 2010 is anticipated as seeing the conclusion of this Handel collection, the grand finale being the marvellous cantata Apollo e Dafne. Volume five is a Gramophone Critics Choice 2009.

In May 1707 George Frideric Handel entered into the service of the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, and under his protection, embarked upon a tremendous career.As well as making a name for himself as a spectacular virtuoso on the harpsichord and organ, through his plentiful concerts in the Roman academies, Handel lost no time in also becoming a highly sought-after composer through his felicitous and apparently inexhaustible inspiration. In addition to a significant number of cantatas for solo voice and basso continuo, Handel also involved himself in composing cantatas for larger numbers of voices, combining these with a large supporting orchestral group. The score of Clori,Tirsi e Fileno is certainly a complex one, as much for its dramatic plotline as for its individually-chosen musical options: the result is a genuine opera in miniature, equipped with real refinement and lightness. Consequently, Clori,Tirsi e Fileno turns into an authentic laboratory in which Handel experiments with the most diverse musical and dramatic forms, obtaining by this method a capacity to elaborate that special language which was to locate it firmly within the glories of the theatre, from the past and the present. Extended interview with Fabio Bonizzoni on Glossa’s new website: glossamusic.com

“Fabio Bonizzoni ensures that the performances crackle with dramatic tension or plumb the depths of desolate melodic melancholy according to what Handel’s music demands, but the most impressive aspect of these performances is the conductor’s awareness of story-telling and judicious moulding of the musical flow. ..further testament to the marvellous subtlety and richness of Handel’s Roman music and contains Handel-singing, playing and direction of the absolute highest order…This lovingly prepared series promises to be of the utmost importance to Handel lovers.” Gramophone

Fabio Bonizzoni has come up with another imaginative and enticing programme for his latest Glossa release, creating an Italian pastiche with music by André Campra and starring soprano Roberta Invernizzi. This is the latest hit from La Risonanza and follows discs devoted to Handel, Lully and Alessandro Scarlatti.

André Campra, a major figure in the world of French opera between Lully and Rameau, was clearly not very impressed by the formers’ lack of enthusiasm for Italian musical practices in France, when he was elevated to the post of surintendant de la musique du roi.

In many of Campra’s French opéras-ballets and comédieslyriques one finds dashing arias interpolated with texts in Italian (Campra’s father was Italian-born like Lully padre e figlio). From these Fabio Bonizzoni and Angela Romagnoli have chosen and concocted Gli strali d’Amore (Love’s Arrows), thereby following in the footsteps of Campra: a dab hand at this activity himself, as demonstrated by his Les Fragments de Mr. De Lully. Joining Bonizzoni and Invernizzi, whose “Portrait” album was recently issued by Glossa, in this delightful sequence of recitatives and da capo arias recorded in Tuscany, are the impressive Cyril Auvity and Salvo Vitale, and a sprightly La Risonanza. The informative booklet essay is by Barbara Nestola.

For the second Glossa Portrait release the spotlight falls upon the soprano Roberta Invernizzi. It was the inspired choice of Fabio Bonizzoni to involve the Milanese singer in his series of Le Cantate Italiane di Handel, and Invernizzi appeared on no less than five of the seven discs in that greatly-admired series. This 2-disc Portrait draws on those recordings to highlight the delicious characterisations of Invernizzi in Handel’s vivid and visceral portrayals of nymphs and goddesses such as Diana, Cloris, Amarilis, Lidia and Fili, Arcadian characters one and all but nonetheless human in personality.

Roberta Invernizzi is gifted with an ability to master the technical, expressive and temperamental challenges set by Baroque composers such as Vivaldi, Monteverdi and Alessandro Scarlatti and she has also added a scintillating theatrical verve to many of the incursions into Neapolitan opera buffa in the company of Antonio Florio.

The fact that Bach may have been working on Die Kunst der Fuge up until the point that he died and the fact that the work’s concluding contrapunctus may have been left incomplete are just two factors which have subsequently allowed posterity’s imagination to operate in full flight. When Bach passed away, without further delay his sons busied themselves preparing this score work for printing and were the first in nurturing the legend that Bach, incapable of completing the final contrapunctus, dictated a four-part chorale on his deathbed in order to compensate for the contrapunctus’ abrupt end and as a way of saying farewell… In any case, what we are left with is a unique composition which for a great deal of time has been considered as a purely theoretical exercise and one which was not intended to be performed. Nowadays, however, many experts think otherwise and among them is Fabio Bonizzoni, who is convinced that this is music written for a keyboard instrument, and very likely for a harpsichord. Our musician, who hails from Milan, has opted with his recording for the structure of Bach’s first autograph version, the so-called P200 manuscript, making use of an additional harpsichord for four of the contrapuncti, something which was suggested by Bach himself in that manuscript.

Fabio Bonizzoni, whose artistry is currently particularly being appreciated on account of his memorable series of recordings of Handel’s Italian cantatas, presents with this album one of his own most personal projects; but one which also acts as a punctuation point prior to Bonizzoni embarking upon a new set of adventures with his ensemble La Risonanza.

Nowadays, little introduction on record is needed for the dramatic output of Jean-Baptiste Lully: his style has become unquestionably associated with French music of the 17th century. But long before he became the all-conquering composer of tragedies en musique at the court of Le Roi Soleil, Louis XIV, Giovanni Battista Lulli had been a young Florentine employed as a page for the Duchess of Montpensier and detailed to provide her with conversational classes in Italian. In those early years in Paris, Lully also learnt his craft as a composer, encouraged by the efforts of France's First Minister, Cardinal Mazarin, also Italian-born, to encourage the spread of music from his native country to the French court: Francesco Cavalli was another composer attracted to Paris to demonstrate the mastery of Italians in opera. Lully's own initial compositions focused on music for ballets de cour and for these instrumental entrées were combined with vocal sections in Italian and his early treatment of recitative. Breaking off briefly from their ongoing grand survey of Handel's Italian Cantatas for Glossa, Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza draw us into the Italianate world of Paris of the 1650s and 1660s before leaving us at the gates of Lully's collaboration with Molière in Le bourgeois gentilhomme and his own entrance into the tragédie en musique.