Search - Antonio Caldara, Diego Cantalupi, L'Aura Soave :: Antonio Caldara: Suonate da Camera, Opera II

The most beautifull caldara cd

Andrew Manze | England | 01/08/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm sure it's the best Caldara cd I've ever heard. It rates 5 stars on every cd magazine. L'aura Soave is the best baroque ensemble in Italy! Well done.Andrew Manze"

Chamber Passion!

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 03/22/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"(If the sole previous reviewer is indeed 'Andrew Manze', my endorsement of this CD is hardly needed!)



But here we go: Of all the passionate Italian baroque composers of the 17th C, none was both more passionate and more masterful than Antonio Caldara. He was probably a Venetian, of a musical family, student of and successor to Legrenzi. But he left Venice for Rome, where he certainly worked alongside Corelli, and then Rome for Vienna, wher he worked alongside Fux. His career in Vienna was long and fruitful. His major works included as many as 60 operas and 36 cantatas. Some of the cantatas have been magnificently recorded in the two decades; the most outstanding of all is "Maddalena ai Piedi di Christo", conducted by Rene Jacobs. Just how 'good' was Antonio Caldara? To my ears, one of the greatest of his era, the peer of Alessandro Scarlatti, and worthy of comparison to the younger baroque giants, Bach and Telemann.



The eleven chamber sonatas recorded here date from Caldara's Roman period. They have both the structural elegance of Corelli and the exuberant passion of other Italian baroque composers. "Passion" is hard to define in words -- even in the most technical musicological terms -- but "I know it when I hear it" and I think most other listeners will hear it also.



So, we have passionate music recorded by an ensemble of passionate musicians -- all Italians -- L'Aura Soave, directed by lutenist Diego Cantalupi. The ensemble for this CD includes two violins, played by Mauricio Cadossi and Andrea Rognoni; cello, Marco Frezzato; cembalo, Leonardo Morini; and theorbo (BIG lute) played by Diego Cantalupi himself. If those players are not familiar, they should be; they are all first-rate. A notable quality of this performance is the prominence of the theorbo, which sustains the basso continuo with a flexible expressivity that the keyboard cembalo could not provide alone. If the "aura" of these sonatas is "suave", it's chiefly because the theorbo renders it so. There's a wonderful interaction between the robust passions of the three bowed instruments and the gracious intellectuality of Cantalupi's lute.



Fortunately, the recording quality is a match for the performance, well balanced and highly 'present' in timbre. I can't imagine not loving this CD, not playing it often and always hearing new graces in it."