At Glossa we are very proud to salute the musical talents of our artists, whose splendid recordings ended 2008 receiving further critical approval, important echoes of how other music-lovers have been reacting across the year. Back in September 2008 Claudio Cavina of La Venexiana received its second Gramophone Award in London when their recording of Montervedi's L'Orfeo was voted by the UK magazine's critics as the winner in the Baroque Vocal category. Now, only last week, it was another recording from that extensive Monteverdi series that Cavina and his musicians have been making for Glossa, the Quinto libro dei madrigali, which received the accolade of the Early Music category-winner in the MIDEM Classical Awards (MCA) in Cannes, in France. The MCA jury consists of 14 members drawn from magazines, websites and radio stations from 12 European countries and the Awards ceremony takes place during the course of the annual music industry-wide trade fair held in Cannes in France.
La Venexiana's Claudio Cavina was present at the MCA ceremony to collect the Award. La Venexiana has now completed its survey of all nine books of madrigals composed by Claudio Monteverdi and is turning its attention to other areas of the Italian composer's output. Previously, the group had received a Gramophone Award in 2001 for its recording, also on Glossa, of Gesualdo da Venosa's Il quarto libro di madrigali.
The strengths of the Italian ensemble in Italian repertory owe much to their innate understanding of their native language. As well as leading exponents of this - such as Mameli and countertenor Cavina himself - it is interesting to note the presence on the Monteverdi Quinto libro disc of other of today's top Italian early music performers: such as tenor Giuseppe Maletto and violinist Svetlana Fomina, both from Cantica Symphonia (responsible for Glossa's highly-regarded series of recordings devoted to the music of Guillaume Dufay).
Claudio Cavina and his performers were not the only Glossa artists to be celebrated with a critical accolade at the 2009 MCA. The recording of Sémélé, the tragédie lyrique by Marin Marais, performed by Le Concert Spirituel and directed by Hervé Niquet was one of the top-three nominations in the First Recording category. Niquet's sterling work in reviving this 1709 opera is allowing lovers of glorious Baroque music two hundred years later to savour this treasure from the past. Watch out for Hervé Niquet and his musicians returning to their ongoing Glossa series of recordings of music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier when they turn their interpretative mastery to another French Baroque masterpiece in Charpentier's Missa Assumpta est Maria.
Photo © Kornel Magyar © 2009 Glossa Music