Vivaldi: In turbato mare irato, RV627

Outstanding!
Early Music Review

“This release in Robert King's complete cycle of Vivaldi's church music mainly features works unconnected with the Ospedale della Pietà, including a motet written in Rome and the famous Stabat mater composed for a church in Brescia. All are for solo voice or voices and orchestra, and for the most part they all carry the typical Vivaldi trademarks: boisterous energy alongside a tender if angular lyricism; a vivid and excitable responsiveness to verbal imagery; and what the insert-notes describe as 'a shocking radicalism: a willingness to strip music down to its core and reconstitute it from these simplest elements'. The best works on this disc are the first three. In turbato mare is a rip-roaring 'simile' motet which makes use of the old operatic device of comparing a troubled soul to a stormtossed ship finding peace in port. The noble Nonin pratis aut in hortis is an introduzione, a short motet designed to precede a performance of a lost Miserere; since it ends on a half-close, it's followed here (with musical if not liturgical logic) by the Stabat mater. All are excellently sung; few recordings exist of the first two, but it's hard to imagine the ebulliently virtuosic Susan Gritton and the movingly firm-voiced Jean Rigby being significantly bettered. By contrast, the Stabat mater is well-trodden territory, but the warmly mellifluous Robin Blaze easily matches his rivals on disc. The King's Consort is a little raw in the string department, but in general it shows bright and lively form and is well served by an acoustic perfectly suited to the occasion. Under King's direction, too, they capture splendidly the spirit of this uncomplicated but atmospheric music.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Robin Blaze sings with passion and raw honesty, and delivers plenty of sweetly contoured coloratura. The King's Consort boldly play with resonance and passion.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007

“Simone Kermes is an agile singer with a wide vocal range who is comfortably able to negotiate Vivaldi's virtuoso writing with technical panache and expressive warmth.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2007 *****

“Opening with one of the composer's most thrillingly virtuoso motets, In furore iustissimae irae, the Venice Baroque Orchestra go on to one of his most beautiful, Nullo in mundo pax. And if the other two are less individually striking, they are nevertheless well worth hearing; In turbato mare opens with a stomach-churning depiction of those raging seas that are always tossing the soul so, and later conjures dread at mention of the 'horrors of death', while Sum in medio tempestatum treats a similar subject with a touch more mid-century leisure and politeness.
The disc is, of course, a vehicle for Simone Kermes, whose bright vocal talents have so far impressed in a number of Baroque operas but here make their solo recording debut. She proves more than a match for Vivaldi's typically athletic vocal demands – indeed adds to them in a number of tessitura-extending cadenzas – and makes much of the music's bold contrasts. Some may look for more innocence in the gentler music, where her mini-vibrato can sound rather knowing, but in general Kermes's performances give nothing but pleasure. The orchestra is forthright and exciting, with a satisfyingly full, organ-enriched sound, marred only by some of the cheesy lute embellishments.
A straightforward Vivaldi disc, but one full of the strength of expertise.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…Simone Kermes… proves more than a match for Vivaldi's typically athletic vocal demands - indeed adds to them in a number of tessitura-extending cadenzas - and makes much of the music's bold contrasts. The orchestra is forthright and exciting, with a satisfying full, organ-enriched sound...” Gramophone Magazine, June 2007