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Avanti l'opera - An A-Z of Italian baroque overtures
Charivari Agréable/Kah-Ming Ng
rec. 2013, St Andrew's Church, Toddington, Gloucestershire, UK. DDD
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD383 [63:15]

Opera was one of the main occupations of the rich and famous and the not so rich and famous in baroque Italy. Large numbers of operas were composed during the 17th and 18th centuries. The list of theatrical works by composers such as Giovanni Bononcini and Antonio Caldara, or - from a later period - Johann Adolf Hasse is astonishing. Obviously many of them have been lost. Even from the still large number of operas which have been preserved, only a small fraction is performed and recorded now and then. Most of them are never heard by modern audiences, and because of that, neither are the overtures.

One may wonder how many of the opera audiences of the 17th and 18th centuries heard them. In the liner-notes to the present disc Kah-Ming Ng describes at length the many distractions and general disorder during opera performances at the time. He opens with a telling quotation from Molière: "Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive".

Operas were always preceded by an instrumental introduction, usually called a 'sinfonia'. One of the best-known from the early stages in opera history is the toccata from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. There is mostly no thematical connection between an overture and the ensuing opera. However, if the score of an overture includes a part for trumpet, such as Zenobia by Tomaso Albinoni, one may expect the opera to include a battle scene or a heroic aria. In the overture to Il trionfo della fama by Francesco Bartolomeo Conti two trumpets play a quite prominent role. The scoring of some overtures includes parts for oboes; those date from the first half of the 18th century when the oboe - originally developed in France - was being disseminated across the continent. There is a clear difference between overtures from the second half of the 17th century and overtures from the 18th. The former are scored for strings alone and were usually in five parts. That probably also goes for the overtures to Pietro Andrea Ziani's Il Talamo and Giovanni Legrenzi's Il Totila, but the liner-notes don't go into any detail about the individual pieces recorded here.

The Italian overture usually comprised two fast movements, embracing a slow movement. Sometimes the first movement was in a slow tempo, such as Il trionfo di Camilla by Bononcini and L'Idalma by Bernardo Pasquini. As I noted above there is no thematical connection between the overture and the opera; the overture itself is often not even especially dramatic. However, there are exceptions. The overtures to Ariosti's Vespasiano and to La Proserpine by Carlo Francesco Pollarolo are good examples. The dramatic element is mostly to be found in the transition from the first (fast) to the second (slow) movement. During the 18th century the opera overture would become increasingly independent and was often published separately. It was the foundation of what was to become the orchestral symphony in the classical era.

These overtures could whet the appetite for the operas. It would be nice if we didn't have to hear the same operas over and over again. There is certainly much to discover. That said, the overtures can be enjoyed without knowing anything about the operas. "[Our] recording is purely about the music. It is a sample of a rich, yet untapped, genre (...) unencumbered by posturing performers, and short-circuited to aural stimulation", Kah-Ming Ng writes at the close of his liner-notes. One could say that this disc is unpretentious. However, it is very enjoyable and the music is brilliantly played. Charivari Agréable, well known for its unconventional programming, has added another gem to its already impressive discography.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen

Charivari Agréable has added another gem to its already impressive discography.

Track-list
 
Attilio ARIOSTI (1666-1729)
Vespasiano [5:44]
Leonardo LEO (1694-1744)
Catone in Utica [2:40]
Giovanni BONONCINI (1670-1747)
Cefalo [2:26]
Antonio CALDARA (c1671-1736)
L'Olimpiade [4:48]
Carlo Francesco POLLAROLO (c1653-1723)
La Proserpine [4:15]
Alessandro SCARLATTI (1660-1725)
La Statira [3:23]
Giovanni BONONCINI
Turno Aricino [3:45]
Il trionfo di Camilla [4:54]
Giuseppe Antonio BERNABEI (c1649-1732)
L'Ascanio [2:57]
Bernardo PASQUINI (1637-1710)
L'Idalma [3:05]
Tomaso ALBINONI (1671-1751)
Zenobia [4:03]
Pietro Andrea ZIANI (1616-1684)
Il Talamo [3:51]
Carlo Francesco POLLAROLO
Gl'inganni felici [2:30]
Giovanni LEGRENZI (1626-1690)
Il Totila [1:53]
Agostino STEFFANI (1654-1728)
La lotta d'Alcide con Acheloo [2:31]
Alessandro SCARLATTI
La cadutadi Decemviri [4:09]
Francesco Bartolomeo CONTI (1682-1732)
Il trionfo della fama [6:20]

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