Customer Reviews

Senna Festeggiante / Gloria E Imeneo

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Forget Nathalie Stutzmann, Susan Gritton, Sara Mingardo, or any of the soloists in Opus111's atrocious Vivaldi series. Tuva Semmingsen, Carolyn Sampson, and Hilary Summers are the best young female Baroque singers, hands down. All three are exceptionally musical, agile, and light-voiced without sounding overly thin. The bass Andrew Foster-Williams is also quite adequate, although no bass has ever actually found the early music sound required for this type of music. The music is also exquisite; it's nice to see some of Vivaldi's vocal music finally being performed, as it is quite comparable to Handel and the other Baroque composers. Hyperion continues to give us the best Baroque music on the market.

This is Robert King and The King's Consort at its very best. Crisp and vibrant, you can feel the joy in performing this piece. But what's even more exhilarating is the level of the soloists. I was already aware of the beautiful voice of Carolyn Sampson, but Hilary Summers and Andrew Foster-Williams were a revelation. Great timbre, outstanding voices, they know how to sing baroque music without falling into the trap of wooly vibrato's.

I just want to reply to the review of the other customer, briefly: One can never forget Sara Mingardo and many other opus 111 artists such as Invernizzi, Bertagnolli, Jaroussky etc. They are simply "the best".