Sara Mingardo

Following the success of two recent Rossini recordings, the sacred Stabat Mater and the opera William Tell, Antonio Pappano and his Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia have taken on the composer’s late masterpiece, the Petite Messe solennelle. The soloists are Marina Rebeka, Sara Mingardo, Francesco Meli and Alex Esposito. Like the earlier-mentioned Rossini titles, the Petite Messe solennelle was recorded in the Orchestra’s acoustically fine home, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.

Gramophone hailed the recording of the Stabat Mater as “one of the great choral recordings” and “a revelatory account” in which “Tender and expressive word-painting … is a feature of the entire performance, underpinned by Pappano’s superbly crisp yet endlessly considerate pointing of Rossini’s trademark rhythmic invention.” The Sunday Times wrote, “Pappano lives the text like the great opera conductor he is, bringing consolation as well as fire and brimstone to Rossini’s heady spiritual brew.” Of their William Tell release, The Independent wrote, “Rossini's final opera is infrequently staged, and it's unlikely anyone will try again soon: why risk comparison with Pappano's magisterial presentation, the latest in a string of triumphs for the maestro?”

Gioachino Rossini composed the Petite Messe solennelle in 1863 at his villa in Passy on the outskirts of Paris. He had moved there from Italy in 1855 with his Parisian-born second wife Olympe Pelissier and found that, after years of ill health during which he had stopped composing altogether, he felt much better in Paris. When he began to compose again, rather than operas, he turned his hand to smaller-scale works, instrumentally accompanied songs, piano and chamber music, which he referred to as his ‘Péchées de vieillesse’ (‘Sins of old age’). Many were performed at the Saturday evening soirees that he and his wife hosted at their home starting in the winter of 1858.

The Count and Countess Pillet-Will were bankers and friends of Rossini and it was to Countess Louise that the Petite Messe solennelle is dedicated. It is scored for twelve voices (four soloists and eight additional choristers), two pianos and harmonium. Rossini wrote at the top of the score, “Twelve singers of the three sexes, men, women and castrati will suffice for its performance: that is, eight for the chorus, four for the solos, twelve cherubim all told.” At the end of the score, he wrote, “Dear Lord, here it is finished, this poor little mass. Have I just written sacred music, or rather sacrilegious music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much technique, a little bit of heart, that is all. Blessings to you and grant me Paradise.” The work was performed to consecrate the newly built private chapel at the Count and Countess’s grand new home and, shortly thereafter, for invited guests, although the composer did not attend either performance.

After that, he undertook to orchestrate the work – to ensure that no one else would do it after his death. During the orchestration process in 1867, he decided to add a previously composed piece for soprano, O salutaris hostia, between the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei of the Mass. On completion of the orchestration, Rossini put both versions away, permitting no further performances of either during his lifetime.

Shortly after Rossini’s death in November 1868, however, his widow sold performance rights to the orchestrated version to the impresario Maurice Strakosch, who arranged the first performance at the Théâtre Italien in Paris on 28th February 1869, as close as possible to the composer’s leap-year birthday on 29 February.

The soloists on this recording are the young Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka, whose recent debuts at Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, Salzburg Festival and Metropolitan Opera have been superlatively received; the award-winning Italian contralto Sara Mingardo, whose voice has been praised for its “extraordinarily rich contralto depths and interpretive capabilities”; the Italian tenor Francesco Meli, who made his Covent Garden and MET debuts in Rigoletto, performed at La Scala and in Vienna with Riccardo Muti and recorded La sonnambula with Natalie Dessay and Sara Mingardo for Virgin Classics; and the young Italian bass Alex Esposito, especially noted for his interpretations of works by Mozart and Rossini.

Le Concert d’Astrée, under its founder and conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, celebrates its 10th anniversary in style with a charity concert in Paris featuring 23 of the world’s most distinguished singers of baroque repertoire.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Le Concert d’Astrée, under its founder and conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, will give a concert entitled ‘Fête Baroque’ at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on 19th December 2011. Joining Haïm and the orchestra are no less than 23 of the world’s most distinguished singers of baroque repertoire. Among the sources of the evening’s arias and ensembles are Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Rinaldo, Tamerlano, Come Ye Sons of Art, Thésée, Dardanus, Hippolyte et Aricie, and Les Indes galantes. The recording of this spectacular concert will join 15 discs that Haïm and Le Concert d’Astrée already have in the Virgin Classics catalogue.

The concert also benefits a good cause as will this CD. Under the patronage of Madame Simone Veil, the former President of the European Parliament, the proceeds of the concert will go to the Révolution Cancer 2010-2013 programme of the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, south of Paris. The institute, with a staff of 2,600, is the leading oncology centre in Europe.

Two of today’s most accomplished and critically acclaimed interpreters of early and baroque music, the singers Sara Mingardo and Sandrine Piau, combined for this best-selling 2009 recording of arias and duos from Handel’s operas Radamisto, Flavio, Poro, Tamerlano, Rinaldo, Orlando, Alessandro, Deidamia, Amadigi, and Ottone. They are accompanied by the world-renowned Concerto Italiano and its conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini.

Studio recording, 2004

Recorded live in Genoa (Cattedrale di San Lorenzo) and London (Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich), November 2000.

Cantatas for the twentieth and twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, recorded live in November 2000. John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists head to Italy to give two concerts, one in the cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa and one the following day in the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

We join John Eliot and his forces for the first of these two concerts - a performance of three little-known secular–imaged cantatas in the stunning Gothic cathedral of San Lorenzo. The soloists are internationally acclaimed and include Magdalena Kožená, Sara Mingardo, Christoph Genz and Peter Harvey.

The concert opens with the solemn BWV 162 Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe (Ah! I see, now, that I have gone to the feast), a cantata brought to life by Salomo Franck’s strongly worded libretto. Bach thrives upon Franck’s love of poetic compounds and polar opposites. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the opening bass aria where we get references to life and death, rays of heaven and fires of hell.

There then follows BWV 49 Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen (I go and seek with longing), a dialogue cantata geared towards creating an atmosphere depicting the beauty of the soul. In his booklet notes, Gardiner states that the best movement is the fourth which he believes to be “a kind of early version of Bernstein’s ‘I feel pretty.’ ”

We then travel back to London for a concert in the Old Royal Navel College Chapel, Greenwich, a perfect architectural and acoustic setting. Bach composed four outstanding works for this Sunday, marvellously contrasted and subtly differentiated by mood and instrumentation.

The earliest of these, BWV 109 Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben! (Lord, I believe, help Thou mie unbelief), opens the concert. The wonderful opening chorus, a setting of words from St Mark’s gospel, emphasises the tension between belief and scepticism in such personal terms that one wonders whether it mirrors Bach’s own private struggles of faith.

This theme of distress and the yearning for forgiveness continues in BWV 38 Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (Out of deep distress I cry to you) where Bach, in the final chorus, emphasises this mood by giving all voices full orchestral doubling, including the rare usage of four trombones! After all that accumulated intensity, BWV 98 Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, dating from November 1726, is exceptionally genial.

“This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer

Award winning, world renowned conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini with his stunning period-instrument ensemble, Concerto Italiano – about to celebrate its 25th anniversary – perform two Glorias by Vivaldi. It’s their first major release for the Vivaldi Edition since 2004. The all-star soloist line-up is headed by contralto Sara Mingardo, “one of the richest voices before the public today” (Gramophone, July 2009). Don’t miss the stunning “Domine Deus Agnus Dei” from Gloria RV589.The recording presents two major sacred works by Vivaldi: the celebrated Gloria RV589 and the much rarer RV588. The recording also features a work recorded only four times in recording history: the ‘Ostro Picta’ introduction, that Rinaldo has chosen to associate with the Gloria RV589.

Rediscover the feminine vocal world of the red priest. Sara Mingardo and Rinaldo Alessandrini plunge us into the gripping theatricality and emotion of the Stabat Mater, and the exaltation and sorrow of the Virgin at the feet of the cross, plus several other works including three concertos.

Pergolesi Year 2010 celebrates the birth 300 years ago of a first rank composer whose death at 26 robbed music of a singular voice.

Autumn’s 2009 release of this first volume of a three album all-Pergolesi project, featuring Orchestra Mozart conducted by Claudio Abbado, whets the appetite for succeeding volumes while creating buzz for the commemoration year itself.

25 years after recording the Stabat Mater, Pergolesi’s most popular piece, Maestro Abbado unveils his new vision of this sublime score with a cast of splendid singers.

Playing a priceless Guarneri Giuliano Carmignola, winner of Germany’s Echo award and the French Diapason d’or, records Pergolesi’s Violin Concerto for the first time.