Max Emanuel Cencic, Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev - Arie Napoletane (2015)

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Max Emanuel Cencic, Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev - Arie Napoletane (2015)

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Countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic has emerged as a new star of the specialty partly through fearless programming, and this collection of Arie Napoletane, Neapolitan arias or arias from Naples, is no exception. There really isn't a "Neapolitan school." Rather, Naples was on the musical cutting edge in the second quarter of the 18th century, and the arias here represent both a classic opera seria style, in the pieces by the massively prolific Alessandro Scarlatti, and music by the composers who pointed the way toward the melodically simpler future of Gluck and eventually Mozart, like Leonardo Leo and Leonardo Vinci. These latter are hardly household names, and Cencic, offering several recorded premieres, renders a valuable service simply by finding and choosing the deliberate and sensuous arias heard here. Moreover, the album's stylistic contrasts play to Cencic's strengths. Countertenors have their specialties, but Cencic does it all well, from big heroic pieces like Nicola Porpora's "Quel vasto, quel fiero" (track one) from the opera Polifemo, to Leo's "No, non vedete mai" (track eight), from Siface. The next step, as with Handel and Vivaldi, is to mount a modern production of one of these pieces – Cencic has laid all the groundwork in introducing the repertory. A curious feature of the album is the inclusion at the end of a Harpsichord Concerto in D major, credited to Domenico Auletta. The birth and death dates given for this composer actually correspond to those of that composer's father, Pietro Auletta. Nothing about this work appears in the album notes, and it seems to have been tacked on at the end, performed by the album's conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev, whose ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro is beautifully matched to Cencic's range of skills. The concerto form seems more likely for the younger Auletta, but whoever composed the thematically expansive work, it's another unique discovery on an album with a lot of them.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

Flamboyance and intelligence don’t always go hand in hand, though Max Emanuel Cencic possesses both qualities in spades. The photographs accompanying his ‘Arie napoletane’ album show him reclining on a chaise longue, modelling – the only word one can use – the brocade jackets that have of late become his trademark platform wear. Behind the posing, however, lurks a recital of superb cogency that has claims to being his finest album to date.

He presents us with a survey of Neopolitan Baroque rarities woven into an emotionally coherent sequence that passes from triumph to resignation. He opens with Ulisse’s victory song from Porpora’s Polifemo, but its vaunting assertion and swirling coloratura soon give way to reiterated expressions of doubt, erotic conflict and sullen anger. There are arias of great beauty by Leonardo Leo (‘Del suo gentil sembiante’ from Demetrio is exquisite) and bravura showstoppers from Vinci’s Eraclea and Scarlatti’s Il Cambise. The ambiguities, sexual and harmonic, of Pergolesi’s ‘L’infelice in questo stato’ from L’olimpiade form the disc’s centrepiece, but the high point comes towards the end with ‘Qual turbine che scende’ from Porpora’s Germanico in Germania. A ‘rage’ aria complete with tempest imagery, its pulsing accompaniment links driving wind and rain with dark psychological obsessions. ‘Vago mio sole’ from Scarlatti’s Massimo Puppieno follows, terse and stark with continuo accompaniment, after which Cencic effectively bows out of his own recital, leaving Il Pomo d’Oro and their harpsichordist-conductor Maxim Emelyanychev to provide the bravura finale on their own with Domenico Auletta’s Harpsichord Concerto in D.

Cencic negotiates this complex emotional parabola wonderfully well. This is a great voice, dark in tone, beguiling in its liquidity and finely equalised. His coloratura flows with great ease, stunningly so in the aria from Eraclea, though it’s the slower numbers, where the long lines are effortlessly sustained and the emotions keenly felt, that make the disc so special. Il Pomo d’Oro are on fine form, too, and Emelyanychev, volatile, sensuous and keenly intense, is impressive. An exceptional recital, very highly recommended.

Review by Tim Ashley, Gramophone

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Max Emanuel Cencic, Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev - Arie Napoletane (2015)

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Max Emanuel Cencic, Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev - Arie Napoletane (2015)

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