Scarlatti: Christmas Music
This release under the direction of Giulio Prandi, featuring soprano Carlotta Colombo, features four pieces by Alessandro Scarlatti and a mass by Giovanni Giorgi, music performed by Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
Domenico’s father was among the most famous musicians from Naples, but as the liner notes point out in this release, he was also well-known in Rome, traveling with sojourns in both cities during his lifetime. And despite his renown with opera, these pieces represent his output for religious purposes.
Save for the Beata Mater, scored for chorus and soloists, the other pieces on this recording include violin parts and basso continuo.
In Scarlatti’s Messa per il Santissimo Natale he places weight on the Gloria and Credo. It’s not difficult to hear the influence of Monteverdi here, but wrapped in a far more luxurious harmonic language.
I first thought of Palestrina when I started the sixth track, the Beata Mater, again, a richer style, perhaps, backed up with organ. It highlights Scarlatti’s ability to address the modal sound of older works while making music suitable for a contemporary audience.
The pastoral cantata Non so più qual m’ingombra is a shock, the modernity of Scarlatti’s style here with the backwards-looking preceding counterpoint. The Ghislieri musicians do well to match the affect born from the text in their contributions. For those who like singers keeping vibrato in check, Colombo is an ideal interpreter. I found her style fit the music well, while emphasizing our ability to clearly understand the Italian. The style in this piece speaks to a different function, as does the use of Italian over Latin. Those familiar with Scarlatti’s operatic writing would have found something to enjoy, I think, in the freshness of his writing.
The Giorgi mass is a world-premier recording. It contrasts with the seriousness of track 11, Scarlatti’s O magnum mysterium. Instead, his style more aligns with the opening Scarlatti mass. Perhaps surprising, is how prominent a role the violins play in Giorgi’s mass. It showcases the openness at the time to a fresh style while still embracing the old. (To be fair, as the liner notes well mention, Giorgi’s mass comes years after Scarlatti’s.) The middle of the Credo turns to a minor tonality, and the combination of voices and violins during this short moment remind me well of Scarlatti’s style.
For me, living in the U.S., we’re blanketed with the same Christmas music each year, and while I can’t deny the attraction to some of this traditional music, I always am looking for unfamiliar pieces that fit the season. This album may just fit the bill, if like me, you’re looking for something new. In this case, I’d spend time with each of these works separately. While they make an interesting program together, it’s more difficult to appreciate what makes each interesting when we’re left stuck comparing their stylistic differences.
This recording was made at the Sala della Carità in Padua. The ornately painted space doesn’t quite provide, for my benefit, the most ideal acoustic environment for these pieces. Balance between instruments and singers is good, but there’s something missing in terms of transparent access to each musician. I’d wager that the performances at Santa Maria Maggiore would have been more difficult to hear at the tempos adopted here, which I found natural and befitting the music. This recording, then, reaches a compromise with enough presence to not lose intelligibility of the text to extreme reverberation.
