The Baroque Project, Vol. IV. Tomasi Albinoni. Opera Arias and Instrumental Music. Ana Quintans, soprano. Concerto de’Cavalieri. Marcello Di Lisa, conductor. Containing nine world premiere recordings, the fourth volume of The Baroque Project focuses once again on Venice, this time with the music of Tomaso Albinoni. Concertos and rare arias from Albinoni’s forgotten operas are performed with incredible energy and imagination by Marcello Di Lisa and his Concerto de’Cavalieri on period instruments. The featured soloist is the Portuguese soprano Ana Quintans, widely considered one of the leading baroque singers of our time.

This survey of Vivaldi kicks off with a gutsy yet articulate performance of the Concerto for two trumpets RV 537, featuring flamboyant playing from soloists Andrea Di Mario and Jonathan Pia; it serves as a thrilling overture that leads directly into the spectacular trumpet-laden aria ‘Con palme ed allori’ from Teuzzone (which features some extraordinary embellishments by Kristina Hammarström). A broad range of Vivaldi’s theatrical output for Venice, Mantua and Verona is represented by a pleasingly varied selection of six arias from four different operas and another two arias by Giacomelli from the pasticcio Bajazet (including the striking lament ‘Sposa son disprezzata’, perhaps the recital’s sentimental highlight).

Alessandro Scarlatti is justly famed for his contributions to Read more opera seria and cantata, and indeed it may even be said that he was one of the main progenitors of the Neapolitan style of the early 18th century. In Naples and earlier in Rome he was obligated to write a considerable amount of sacred music, much of it for smaller settings that would be useful in the local churches. Since his music is now becoming more common on disc, it is good to have this recording of a set of four pieces—a gradual, a Marian antiphon, a motet, and a Psalm—all of which reflect rather different approaches to each portion of the liturgy and yet contain a certain commonality in form and structure.

Marcello Di Lisa presents three cantate con stromenti that explore the anguish of abandoned lovers; his erudite booklet-note discusses the literary tradition behind the stories of the shepherd Aminta (a stock Arcadian character with roots in Hellenistic poetry), Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, and the forsaken Olimpia (heroine of cantos 9-11 of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso), and also provides a penetrating commentary on the musical content of Scarlatti’s cantatas.