After Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, Jordi Savall continues his journey into the 19th century with the Italian Symphony of Felix Mendelssohn, a composer he records for the first time. He delivers 2 versions of the work: the one which was performed at the wolrdwide premiere in 1833 and the revised one from 1834. The most conspicuous changes are to be found in the last tree movements. The comparison of the two scores and the performance on period instruments take us as close to Mendelssohn's work and original intention as we will ever get. Thanks to Jordi Savall's insightful conducting, there is still something to discover in Mendelssohn's most famous symphony.

The course of my whole life would undoubtedly have been very different if, one October evening in 1955, I had not had been fortunate enough to hear a live rehearsal of Mozart’s Requiem. A few months earlier, on 1st August, I had turned 14, and luck would have it that my teacher, Joan Just (a composer, and the director of the Conservatoire in my home town of Igualada), decided to prepare the work with the choir of the local Schola Cantorum. That evening I was on my way to the Conservatoire to attend my usual counterpoint and harmony lessons with him; for some reason, I didn’t receive the message telling me that classes had been cancelled due to a rehearsal of the Requiem.

Farnace was apparently one of Vivaldi's favorite operas, because he mounted numerous productions in various cities, and wrote six versions of the score, more than of any of his other operas. The conventions of operatic vocal characterizations that came to be standard – higher voices in the sympathetic roles, and lower voices in villainous roles – had not yet been established, and Farnace features a baritone and contralto in the heroic roles, with a soprano as the villain. Soprano Adriana Fernández shines as the wicked Berenice, who is redeemed at the very last minute. She has a full, creamy voice that she deploys appealing agility and warmth.