What are you listening two?

[fergus]

Donizetti: Don Pasquale under the baton of Muti....

[fergus]

[Jose Echenique]

Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello worked as a composer and violinist in Germany and Italy. There are not many recordings of his music, I only remember an instrumental CD first issued by Harmonia Mundi and later reissued in Glossa but not much else. But this delightful pastoral opera is quite a discovery, it just bursts with musical invention, and the performance is terrific. I can´t recall this group Il Gusto Barocco, but they do very well here. Strongly recommended.

I have only one CD of Brescianello's works in my collection Pepe....





Enjoyable and recommended.

The one that you have posted looks interesting.

The Tisbe is far more than a curiosity Fergus, it actually is very, very good and fortunately the recording is excellent.

[Jose Echenique]

Donizetti: Don Pasquale under the baton of Muti....

I think it´s kind of sad to listen to this Don Pasquale. Mirella Freni, a light lyric/coloratura soprano was born to sing Norina in Don Pasquale, in the 60´s this was her real "fach". But since the mid 70´s she decided to become a spinto soprano and sang Aida, Leonora in La Forza del Destino, Tosca, crazy stuff for her voice, and the sheer loveliness was gone. This Don Pasquale recorded after too many Aidas behind her, shows the mistake, she sings all the notes all right, but the marvelous quality of what once was one of the most beautiful soprano voices of her time is gone.

[fergus]

I think it´s kind of sad to listen to this Don Pasquale. Mirella Freni, a light lyric/coloratura soprano was born to sing Norina in Don Pasquale, in the 60´s this was her real "fach". But since the mid 70´s she decided to become a spinto soprano and sang Aida, Leonora in La Forza del Destino, Tosca, crazy stuff for her voice, and the sheer loveliness was gone. This Don Pasquale recorded after too many Aidas behind her, shows the mistake, she sings all the notes all right, but the marvelous quality of what once was one of the most beautiful soprano voices of her time is gone.

Thank you for the information Pepe; it always makes a recording more interesting if one has some background information or comments on it.

[fergus]

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1, played by Kovacevich....

[Jose Echenique]

Susan Graham, The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Sir John Eliot Gardiner yesterday at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. The program was Beethoven´s Leonore #2 overure and the Fifth Symphony and Berlioz Les Nuits d´Eté. Glorious!

[Jose Echenique]

Tonight it´s Beethoven 2nd and 8th and arias from La Damnation de Faust.

[Diapason]

First time listening seriously to anything in far too long.

[Seán]

Tonight it´s Beethoven 2nd and 8th and arias from La Damnation de Faust.

You are fortunate to have such marvellous talent available to you Pepe. Enjoy.