Customer Reviews

Music of Antonio Lotti

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Harvard was given the gift of a rare manuscript copy of Lotti's Mass in E for three choirs in 1995. This recording of that work and his Crucifixus as well as Trio Sonata in A major are thus admirably performed by the Harvard University Choir and Baroque Chamber Orchestra in 1996-97.

The organ, choirs and sonata players all do a delightful and passionate performance of this important baroque composer. The sacred mass is exquisite and reverent in a quite nice grandoise style...

... but this performance of choral music by the Venetian Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) is not compelling evidence for the composer's stature as one of the greatest contemporaries of Bach and Zelenka. It's a college choir, even if the college is Harvard. I'm sure the singers were thrilling to hear alive in the glorious Civil War Memorial Hall, but the sound you'll hear in your living space will be rumbly and distorted, and the interpretation falls short of professional energy and polish.

If you want to get a measure of Lotti's genius, I can recommend the recent Deutsche Harmonia Mundi recordinh "Lotti Zelenka Bach" performed by the Balthasar-Neuman Choir and Ensemble. The CD includes Zelenka's Miserere, Bach's cantata Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, and Lotti's Missa a Tre Cori - all magnificent massive masterworks, very well performed and finely recorded.