The diversity offered by the music of Georg Friedrich Handel has never been absent from the recorded catalogues. Yet it has only been in recent times that the full glorious depth of his chamber vocal works with Italian texts has been explored; and to do it justice it needs to be performed by artists who have both the interpretative and technical resources. These are expectations which are surely being matched when musicians of the quality of Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza are involved, and no more so when singers in Roberta Invernizzi and Marina De Liso are deploying their vocal talents. The latest exploration into the Italian influences in the music of Handel comes with his chamber duets, on this new recording the ten works scored for soprano and alto voices, and written at various points in Handel’s journeying around Europe in the first half of the 18th century. The chamber duets are small-scale works but are never lacking in the animation or melodic inspiration which one associates with the best of Handel’s music. Having recorded these ten works Fabio Bonizzoni shows himself, as indicated in this new interview, to be interested in not stopping there. In total, Handel wrote over 20 chamber vocal works of this size and scope, so watch out for more to come! [read more...]

Fabio Bonizzoni’s instinct for honing in on the music of the great Baroque composers, such as Bach and Handel, and finding each time a fresh and inspirational response (proving once more, if needed, their greatness), now turns to two contrasting Italian masters in two separate recordings released on Glossa, which are devoted to the music of Antonio Vivaldi and Girolamo Frescobaldi. As the director of La Risonanza, Bonizzoni has demonstrated a rare understanding for the ever-evolving nature of Handel’s response to changing working stimuli. He also has an innate response to the depths of Italian musical expression as a keyboard player. So, there is no better musical direction for Bonizzoni’s journey to head off towards than the music of Girolamo Frescobaldi. By way of an introduction to both his new Frescobaldi and Vivaldi recordings Fabio Bonizzoni here touches upon certain key issues regarding his Italian musical forebears. [read more...]

Roberta Invernizzi is very clearly one of the finest sopranos to be heard today in the Baroque - and especially the Italian Baroque - repertory, as evidenced by the beauty that she brings not only to operatic roles and vocal roles which have been essayed by many other famous singers both on record and in performance, but also by her sense of clarity in and characterization of unknown music from the 17th and 18th centuries. The rediscovery of so much Italian music is a reflection of the labour and artistry of numerous musical minds but as a kind of prima donna inter pares the Milanese soprano stands out from many others for the intensity of her approach, to the point that she is emerging as a new muse for other distinguished modern-day practitioners of the Italian Baroque such as Fabio Bonizzoni and Antonio Florio who contribute here their own thoughts on the artistry of Roberta Invernizzi, adding to the soprano’s own considerations about her musical life.[read more...]

As talented as Fabio Bonizzoni is in performing music from across the Baroque spectrum – witness his Glossa recording of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge – he has become increasingly celebrated for his interpretations of music from Italy. This embraces not only the music of native composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti (the Serenate a Filli album) but, of course, the series of Handel Cantatas in Italian, Lully’s Ballets et récits italiens and now there is a pastiche opera with music by André Campra (born in Aix-en-Provence, but whose father was from Turin). The new recording, Gli strali d’Amore sees Bonizzoni and La Risonanza joined by haute-contre Cyril Auvity and bass Salvo Vitale as well as Bonizzoni’s fellow Milanese musician, the soprano Roberta Invernizzi, whose career as a solo star – as opposed to as her being an ensemble singer – is now starting to blossom (as they say, watch this space...). [read more...]

Fabio Bonizzoni’s series, with La Risonanza, of Handel Italian cantate con stromenti for Glossa has now come to a conclusion with seven volumes recorded, but not before the group were awarded the 2010 Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize for the fifth instalment, Clori, Tirsi e Fileno (with sopranos Yetzabel Arias Fernández and Roberta Invernizzi and contralto Romina Basso in the three named roles). In commending the disc the jury of the Recording Prize made the following comments, “La Risonanza produces a delightful performance that presents all of the strengths and virtues we have come to associate with their recent explorations of Handel’s music. [read more...]

In the third instalment in Fabio Bonizzoni’s survey of the secular cantatas with instrumental accompaniment composed by Georg Frideric Handel during his stay in Italy, come a quartet of works associated with the Venice-born maecenas Pietro Ottoboni – including the substantial Ero e Leandro, the libretto for which is plausibly considered to have been written by the Cardinal Ottoboni himself. As well as the seldom-performed cantata for bass, Spande ancora a mio dispetto and Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio scored for soprano solo, Bonizzoni also directs the Spanish-texted No se emendará jamás.[read more...]