Customer Reviews

Albinoni: Il Nascimento dell'Aurora

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Il Nascimento, a serenata, is the only surviving long vocal work by Albinoni, who composed or contributed to many operas of the period. The subject, the birth of the dawn, was intended as a piece of royal apple-polishing at the Hapsburg court, and the libretto is so light weight that it would make dandelion fluff look substantial. But the music is so fine and so beautiful that it doesn't matter. This recording is excellent, and a good thing, too, as it is the only one. The singers are very good and the recording is good also. Taken along with Albinoni's cantatas, here is proof of his genius as a composer of vocal music. The `Nascimento' is fit to set beside Vivaldi, his contemporary and occasional collaborator. (According to the booklet, there are few surviving works from Albinoni's Hapsburg period. All the known works were stored in the Dresden State Library and were destroyed along with the library, its staff and most of Dresden, in the Allied firebombing of 1945. This music stands as a worthy response to that barbarity.)

Very interesting opera from Albinoni. Radu Marian have a very distinctive voice. Only very few other singers have a voice like this. Javier Medina is one of them. Alesandro Moreschi is the last true castrato with a voice like this from Marian. The other high pitched male sopranos or sopranist sing in falsetto.