Customer Reviews

Scarlatti: Inferno

5 star:		(1)
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I bought this CD solely because of the one previous enthusiastic review by AllOverWith. I was well aware of ensemble Modo Antiquo's interesting performances of Vivaldi, and I perform Baroque music myself, but I might never have stumbled upon this performance without that review. Such are the vagueries of offering great 'classical' music to the marketplace.

Alessandro Scarlatti's cantatas are not only dramatic, amusingly melodramatic in fact. They are also highly eccentric, a quality Modo Antiquo enhances by skillfully eccentic performance, gymnastically 'sticking' their staccato cadences with exquisite unison. Ornate flashes of instrumental virtuosity burst through the manneristic surface of the sinfonias and aria accompaniments. Likewise, astonishing trills and ornamentations are the best part of Elizabeth Scholl's vocal performance, lending variety and affect to her near-perfect control of pitch. One might expect four cantatas sung by one soprano to become monotonous, but it's not so. Following the texts, at least during your first listening, will be worth the effort. These are not perfuntory laments. One is the farewell of James II to his wife and child before invading England to regain his throne. Another is the musical self-portrait of the murderous emperor Nero. Scarlatti's L'Orfeo is as brilliant a poem in Italian as it is a showpiece in music. My only complaint is that the program notes don't identify the author of the poem. In every other way, this is a superb offering. Buy it! Tell your friends to buy it! And thanks to AllOverWith for telling me!

[And if you like this disk, there's one performance I regard as even better - a ten-star CD - Scarlatti's cantata La Sanctissima Trinita, by Fabio Biondi and ensemble Europa Galante.]