5.0 out of 5 stars
Arion's new release, November 13, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Maria, Madre di Dio (Audio CD)
" I've been waiting for this CD since last February, when I heard Arion, Montreal's outstanding baroque orchestra, perform the music before recording. The CD preserves an evening when everything came together: first-rate repertoire, inspired, subtle, deeply human peformances from musicians in their prime.
The program of Vivaldi, Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti focuses on the Virgin Mary, and above all on her grief. The soloists --French soprano Agnès Mellon, Canadian countertenor Matthew White and British violinist-director Monica Huggett-- hold nothing at a safe distance, transforming an archetype of mourning into the most intimate, personal grief.
The voices are gorgeous, and perfectly matched. But ultimately it's the conjunction of sensual beauty and intense sorrow that floors the listener, and elevates the program into a profound meditation on the human condition.
The antiwar sentiments in Handel's Ah! Che troppo ineguali give this 1708 cantata extra relevance.
But the showstopper is Handel's Il Pianto di Maria --an astonishingly dramatic cantata for soprano in which an incandescent Mellon embraces every nuance of emotion from both music and text.
One of the year's best releases."
-Tamara Bernstein, The National Post, 27 October 2003
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