COMPOSERS: Carissimi,Cavalli,Handel,Legrenzi,Monteverdi,Vivaldi etc
LABELS: Opus III
ALBUM TITLE: Arie, Madrigali & Cantate
WORKS: Vocal works
PERFORMER: Sara Mingardo
CATALOGUE NO: OP 30395
Sara Mingardo is a genuine contralto
– a rare voice these days when
even mezzos aspire to soprano
status. It’s expressive, of wide range
and dynamic variety, and her
engagement with notes and texts
pays definite dividends across this
inventive selection from the Italian
Baroque repertoire (including
Handel from his Italian period).
She starts impressively with
Tarquinio Merula’s weirdly
obsessive lullaby of Mary written over the tiniest and most troubling
of ground basses, bringing to it
an imaginative pathos. And she
succeeds brilliantly in two items
from Monteverdi’s Seventh Book
of Madrigals – the first an erotic
duet (in which Monica Bacelli
joins her), the second a passionate
love letter. She enters with keen
dramatic definition into the spirit
of Giovanni Salvatore’s cantata of
mourning ‘Allor che Tirsi udia’,
aided by the vivid spontaneity of
the accompaniments, resourcefully
recreated by Rinaldo Alessandrini.
Given the relative obscurity of
several of the items, a booklet note
solely devoted to the development
and aesthetic significance of the
contralto voice is less useful than one
based on the works would have been.
But the programme is worthwhile,
the sound quality rich and spacious,
and the performances impeccable. George Hall