Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	1	2	3	4	5

Bejun Mehta, Rene Jacobs - Che Puro Ciel - The Rise of Classical Opera (2013)

Posted By: peotuvave

Date: 15 Dec 2014 15:49:41

In the famous Preface to Alceste (1767), Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi posited a new direction for opera. They spoke of moving beyond Baroque forms, of striving for a new naturalism in opera. They wanted, in Calzabigi's lovely phrase, to liberate the language of the heart. Taken from the height of this Reform period, the arias on this disc reveal composers exploring and experimenting, at struggle and at play, as they create the new forms that bring to opera the noble simplicity of the Classical era.

Composer: Christoph W. Gluck, Tommaso Traetta, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Adolf Hasse, …
Performer: Bejun Mehta
Conductor: René Jacobs
Orchestra/Ensemble: Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus

Reviews: The beginnings of the classical period of opera don't get much attention as a unified entity in the recorded repertoire, not anyway other than as discrete recordings of single operas or of excerpts therefrom.
So the anthology Che Puro Ciel: The Rise of Classical Opera (Harmonia Mundi 902172) is especially welcome. The countertenor Bejun Mehta joins the chorus and chamber orchestra of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin under René Jacobs for a moving period-instrument performance of selected arias from operas of the era.

Much of the music you will probably not be very familar with, or perhaps not at all. Christoph Gluck, a major instigator of simplicity, coherence and realism in the opera of the period, is represented by excerpts from his groundbreaking Orfeo ed Euridice as well as the more obscure Ezio. Then there are the lesser-known early Mozart operas Ascanio in Alba and Mitridate. Along with these we get some rather unknown gems: Tommaso Traetta's (1727-1779) Antigona and Ifigenia in Tauride, Johann Adolf Hasse's (1699-1783) Il trionfo di Clelia and Johann Christian Bach's (1735-1782) Artaserse.

Hearing the music with Mehta's precise and moving countertenor as the solo voice, with the period instruments and René Jacobs' meticulous yet impassioned period readings is like hearing this era as never before.

The performances are exceedingly wondrous, lush yet with the intimacy of the era that we rarely hear today. The music sounds much more exotic, more alien, older than the standard readings of this period, plus these are some very rare gems to behold and appreciate.

It's music as discovery. It may change how you hear the era but in any case it will delight any and all music lovers and opera buffs, I can predict.

Tracklisting:

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)
[1] Orfeo ed Euridice : Aria Che puro ciel! 6’06
[2] Coro Vieni a’ regni del riposo 1’46

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
[3] Ascanio in Alba : Recitativo Perché tacer degg’io? 4’33
[4] Aria Cara, lontano ancora 5’01

Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
[5] Antigona : Aria Ah, se lo vedi piangere 3’17

Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783)
[6] Il trionfo di Clelia : Aria Dei di Roma, ah perdonate! 4’32

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782)
[7] Artaserse : Recitativo accompagnato No, che non ha la sorte 1’58
[8] Aria Vo solcando un mar crudele 6’45

Tommaso Traetta
[9] Ifigenia in Tauride : Dormi Oreste! 7’47

Christoph Willibald Gluck
[10] Ezio : Aria Pensa a serbarmi, o cara 5’07

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
[11] Ascanio in Alba : Aria Ah di sì nobil alma 3’42

Tommaso Traetta
[12] Antigona : Aria Ah, sì, da te dipende 5’00

Christoph Willibald Gluck
[13] Ezio : Aria Se il fulmine sospendi 3’27

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
[14] Mitridate : Recitativo accompagnato Vadasi… 1’23
[15] Aria Già dagli occhi il velo è tolto 9’19

EAC

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 12. October 2014, 2:19

Bejun Mehta, Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, Rene Jacobs / Che puro ciel

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GU70N Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 6:06.14 | 0 | 27463
2 | 6:06.14 | 1:46.13 | 27464 | 35426
3 | 7:52.27 | 4:33.00 | 35427 | 55901
4 | 12:25.27 | 5:01.03 | 55902 | 78479
5 | 17:26.30 | 3:17.70 | 78480 | 93324
6 | 20:44.25 | 4:32.12 | 93325 | 113736
7 | 25:16.37 | 1:58.14 | 113737 | 122600
8 | 27:14.51 | 6:45.14 | 122601 | 152989
9 | 33:59.65 | 7:47.39 | 152990 | 188053
10 | 41:47.29 | 5:07.74 | 188054 | 211152
11 | 46:55.28 | 3:42.72 | 211153 | 227874
12 | 50:38.25 | 5:00.31 | 227875 | 250405
13 | 55:38.56 | 3:27.05 | 250406 | 265935
14 | 59:05.61 | 1:23.09 | 265936 | 272169
15 | 60:28.70 | 9:19.70 | 272170 | 314164

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename C:\temp\Che puro ciel\Che puro ciel.wav

Peak level 97.6 %
Extraction speed 2.3 X
Range quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 7834740D
Copy CRC 7834740D
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [68410683] (AR v2)
Track 2 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [28FB4C89] (AR v2)
Track 3 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [D765874C] (AR v2)
Track 4 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [C870A635] (AR v2)
Track 5 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [13013172] (AR v2)
Track 6 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [DE58F373] (AR v2)
Track 7 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [22B6047E] (AR v2)
Track 8 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [CF8B9D29] (AR v2)
Track 9 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [AB6114D3] (AR v2)
Track 10 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [9C650CF9] (AR v2)
Track 11 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [AC520EFD] (AR v2)
Track 12 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [39D43033] (AR v2)
Track 13 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [1CC52C88] (AR v2)
Track 14 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [495210B0] (AR v2)
Track 15 accurately ripped (confidence 8) [E39DFC38] (AR v2)

All tracks accurately ripped

End of status report

==== Log checksum 8F099B9C3F755BBD09B87F97F9E9646F0A96754FFBAD4D7285F9C293ED7E370E ====