Search - Hasse, Serafini, Martellacci :: Hasse: Cantatas Volume 1

It has been said of Johann Adolf Hasse that few composers have been as famous in their time as Hasse, and yet as quickly forgotten. In Italy he had been called the `Padre della musica', yetupon his death only one musical work was written in his honor by J.A Hiller, a friend of Hasse. So what happened to one of the most successful opera composers of the 18th century after Handel and Gluck, to bring about such a fall from favor? First, he simply became out of date after a very long career, and secondly, he lost his considerable wealth due to the collapse of the Venetian financial system in the early 1780s. The music on this disc, the first volume of a Brilliant Classics edition of Hasse, dates from early in his career and just predates his meteoric rise to fame. His style straddles the late Baroque of Alessandro Scarlatti and the emerging Classical style of Gluck, the young Joseph Haydn and the Stamitz brothers. His music and reputation deserve reassessment. It was after all, Mozart, who wrote that he hoped to `become immortal, like Handel and Hasse'. This is a new recording, made in 2008 with comprehensive booklet notes and sung texts. This is an important project of an unjustly neglected master who was a major influence on composers such as Mozart and Haydn. Featuring period instrument performances, the disc also contains two trio sonatas, Op.3 Nos. 2 & 3.