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Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo
Right: Anonymous portrait of Antonio Caldara.
This is the kind of disc that make reviewers drop all their half-done articles and immediately begin reviewing it (after they stop drooling and pick up their dropped jaws). Why? Because the music is incredible, revelatory, completely refreshening my love of Baroque music. Simply put: I dare you (especially those of you who can't resist Baroque music) to find a single bad track on these CDs. This multi-award-winning album, widely praised in every review of it I've encountered, deserves all that and more! Redundant this review may be, I just have to show you how much I love this music, and to tempt those of you who have yet to get a copy (Harmonia Mundi is now easily available at HMV or Borders) to go buy one now. Now!
As those of you who may have read my review of Vaticini di Pace may know, Antonio Caldara is a contemporary of Vivaldi whose talent and music remains largely neglected - most of his huge treasure trove of 87 operas and 40 oratorios are yet to be recorded. But it is definitely just a matter of time.
 Left: Detail of Magdalene at the feet of Christ,
from "The Lamentation" (c.1303-5) by Giotto (c.1267-1337).THE PLOT of Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo is not one of much action, but rather of a conversational and ideological struggle between the forces of good and evil, wherein Magdalene is urged towards penitence by her sister Martha. But really, when the music is so beguiling, I didn't look at the libretto until I had played through the discs several times.
Right from the beginning, a Vivaldian overture openly and brightly advertises the sheer delightful fertility of Caldara. If you think Caldara is just a second-rate Vivaldi, think again - this is an original voice with his own melodies! Many of the arias you will hear in the oratorio are sung by Amor Terreno (Earthly Love) and Amor Celeste (you guessed it - the good counterpart, Celestial or Divine Love).
 These are delivered to aural enrapturement by alto Bernarda Fink and the countertenor, Andreas Scholl (right), surely two of the best in the business. Just listen to the first two arias by Amor Terreno, urging the listener to blissful sleep. Or Andreas Scholl - technical skill wedded to a delightful sense of decoration, bursting into a flurry of trills and turns when you least expect it.As in the Christmas Cantata, Caldara again shows his gift for the most heavenly lullabies. Divine Love enters dramatically yet calmly, but most musically, to interrupt "Love's treacherous charm", bursting into one of my favourite arias in the oratorio, the rousing but completely graceful La ragione, s'un'alma conseglia ("When Reason counsels the soul") Listen how on the second round of the aria, Scholl effectively and brilliantly ornaments his lines. We are only 10 minutes into the first disc!
 IT'S REALLY pointless for me to describe - suffice to say there is an original hand at work here, despite and within the reminders of Vivaldian stringwork, Handelian rigour, Telemannian playfulness, the humanising touch of Bach and above all, an outpouring wealth of meltingly gorgeous melody. The music is in the very best, the highest vein of the Italian Baroque, splendidly full of life. All this is matched in total spirit and harmony with the skilful playing of the 21-piece Schola Cantorum Basiliensis orchestra under the expert and musical direction of René Jacobs. Oh and the singers!The Argentinian (all the women soloists are from South America) soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr (right) sings her Magdalene with presence and much pleasure. There is the lamenting Pompe inutili ("Worthless finery" Disc 1, track 18), with its extended cello-surging melisma on the word "tormento" and her florrid command to the "vile images of sin" to drop to the ground; and there is the triumphant yet humbly jubilant diletti non più vanto ("Delights, you shall no longer..." 1:22) with its fading trill into the distance and an almost happy gavotte melody.
Rosa Dominguez's Marta can be demonstrated with the following aria Vattene, corri, vola ("Go now, run now, fly now" 1: track 24) - its Handelian orchestral accompaniment compliments the little leaps of encouragement she sings to her sister, with its cheerful runs and her nicely rubato'ed trills. What music! Believe it or not, all the examples above were chosen randomly, and they all come from the first disc only! |
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