With Siface: l’amor castrato, countertenor Filippo Mineccia, together with Javier Ulises Illán and Nereydas, presents a short imaginary pasticcio opera reflecting the music-making and life of the contralto castrato known by that stage name. Born Giovanni Francesco Grossi in 1653 in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Siface was acclaimed for his exciting musical performances, yet who became famous also for the tragedy of his love life. He was called upon to sing in operas and oratorios by the likes of Stradella, Pasquini, Bassani, Pallavicino and Agostini. For a long time in the service of Francesco II d’Este in Modena, Siface was an active member of the musical “ducal circuit” in the Italian peninsula, even, on one occasion, additionally being sent to England, where he performed before monarchy, and met and impressed Henry Purcell.

The revival of that most original and fascinating Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella on Brilliant Classics continues with the issue of his substantial Oratorio La Susanna. The story is based on an apocryph bible book, and tells about the virtuous and beautiful Susanna who is wrongly accused of adultery, but is ultimately saved from her execution by the prophet Daniel. This juicy story inspired Stradella to composing dramatic and effectful arias and (instrumental) ensembles, full of burning emotions.

La Susanna, a late oratorio composed in Genoa in 1681, the year before the composer’s death. La Susanna belongs to a popular 17th-century sub-genre termed oratorio erotico because it employed biblical stories concerned with love or the sensual aspect of women. It is typical of the kind of plot that might be used to attract an audience drawn to the prayer halls to be given Bible “instruction” in easily accessible form. The concept was a mark of counter-Reformation propaganda and stories such as those of Judith or Susanna were popular not only in music, but also literature and painting. Indeed, the cover of the present set is illustrated by a fine painting by Artemisia Gentileschi depicting the beautiful naked Susanna recoiling from the gaze of the two leering elders.

The first work, ‘Qual prodigio è ch’io miri?’, is often cited, quite correctly, as a source for some of Handel’s ‘plague’ chorus melodies in ‘Israel in Egypt’ – including flies and lice, hailstones and ‘he led them forth like sheep’. But I imagine not all that many listeners will have heard Stradella’s original music, and hearing these passages in their original form is in itself a cause of fascination and delight; for a sample, try the Sinfonia (track 9). The work takes the form of a conversation between two male lovers and the female object of their affections, and is here sung by two sopranos and a bass. All three singers are excellent - as is the superb Alessandro Stradella Consort, directed by Estevan Velardi, who have already brought us several first-class recordings of Italian baroque music including other works by Stradella.

Corelli's older Roman contemporary, Alessandro Stradella, was held in high esteem both by his contemporaries and by later generations of composers. Among his patrons in Rome were the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden and the Colonna and Pamphili families. Stradella's amorous adventures, which eventually led to his murder in Genoa at the age of 37 subsequently gave rise to a novel, an opera by Flotow, a poem, a play and a song text. Though an outstanding oratorio composer he was considered in his own lifetime foremost as a composer for the theatre and his great gifts in this direction enabled him to treat the New Testament story of the imprisonment and murder of John the Baptist with considerable dramatic force.

Stradella was murdered in Genoa when he was forty-two years old. Until then he enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres. His musical style is distinctive, characterized by fluid lines, great skill in counterpoint, and harmony which was tonal but which occasionally offers chords that were unusual then and striking even today.

…Fine motets by Stradella and Bassani make this disc worth investigation. …violinist Patrick Cohën-Akenine with his excellent bad Les Folies Françoises play with resonant warmth, particularly in two dynamically charged Corelli sonatas.

A few years after the assassination of Stradella, Pierre Bourdelot and Pierre Bonnet-Bourdelot included a story of the episode in their Histoire de la Musique in 1715, and consequently the ‘legend of Stradella’ was born. According to the legend, Stradella had disappeared with the lover of a Venetian noble, who in response hired a band of assassins to pursue the lovers from city to city. In the booklet of this CD – with its recording from Enrico Gatti, his Ensemble Aurora and Emanuela Galli in the title role – are contained the latest results of Carolyn Gianturco’s investigation into the life and works of Stradella, including some completely new information. La Susanna, an erotic oratorio, was written by Stradella in 1681 on commission from Francesco II, Duke of Modena, who was very fond of the genre.

Alessandro Stradella was a remarkable composer and his oratorio San Giovanni Battista is a remarkable work. Both have never fallen into oblivion. As far as the composer is concerned, that is mainly due to his adventurous life, which ended with his being murdered as a result of one of his many love affairs. The oratorio was still known in the 19th century, and it was Stradella's first work performed in the 20th century: in 1949 Maria Callas took the role of Eriodiade la figlia, better known as Salome.

The Swedish trumpet-player Niklas Eklund, born in Göteborg (Gothenburg) in 1969, trained at the School of Music and Musicology of Göteborg University. Further studies took place under the tutelage of Edward H. Tarr at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. After five years as solo trumpet with the Basle Radio Symphony Orchestra, he left the orchestra in the autumn of 1996 to further his career as a soloist. Since then he has appeared with leading ensembles and conductors such as Zubin Metha, John Eliot Gardiner, Heinz Holliger, András Schiff, Robert King, Eric Ericson, Reinhard Goebel, Gustav Leonhardt, the London Baroque, the Bach Ensemble (New York), the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble and the English Baroque Soloists.

Queen Christina of Sweden was a lavish patron of music in her own kingdom - initially she mainly extended her patronage to French musicians but from 1652 it was largely Italian musicians whom she brought to her court in Stockholm. Having secretly converted to Catholicism, Christina abdicated in June of 1654 and almost immediately left Sweden - most of her valuable library had been smuggled out earlier - and made her way to Rome, her journey there seeming at times to be effectively a series of triumphal processions; there’s a fine account of all these events in Veronica Buckley’s Christina. Once established in Rome - where her arrival was greeted by special musical performances in the Palazzo Barberini, the Palazzo Pamphili and elsewhere - she soon became one of the city’s most active patrons of literature and music.

The Habsburg Imperial Court was a melting pot of many different cultures in which the zest for living of southerners, the Slav melancholy, French formalism, Spanish courtliness and the original German-speaking Alpine cultural region intermingled. Together with his Ars Antiqua Austria ensemble, Gunar Letzbor occupied himself over a ten year period to produce this 10CD "Klang der Kulturen" box, a musical tour of the individual countries that formed the roots of and influences on the music of baroque Vienna, documenting them in live recordings, with each CD representing one country.

Alessandro Stradella’s colourful life and eventual murder have since furnished writers with material for novels and stageworks. But he was very highly regarded as a composer during his short life, and made important contributions to several musical forms with operas, instrumental sinfonie and cantatas. This programme features five seldom performed chamber cantatas and two of his sinfonie or sonatas. Soprano Christine Brandes has a light, pleasing voice, and an athletic technique which enables her to circumnavigate most of Stradella’s often demanding vocal writing. But she is stretched to her limits, perhaps even a shade beyond, in the virtuoso, fiendishly difficult ‘Ferma il corso e torna al lido’.

Bernardo Gaffi's 'La forza del divino amore' (The Power of Divine Love) is an intriguing rarity, and receives its premiere recording on the Chaconne label. It is an oratorio (for chamber forces with solo trumpet), one of eight by the composer which were popular in their day, and it is based on an episode in the life of St Teresa of Ávila. It is a beautiful score, performed by Ensemble 'Pian & Forte', a group formed in 1989 and dedicated to rediscovering and performing works of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Ensemble is joined by three vocal soloists, renowned exponents of the music of this period.

Following four successful recordings released on the Ricercar, Alpha and Arcana labels, Rome-based Andrea De Carlo and his Ensemble Mare Nostrum continue their exploration of the Roman repertoire and inaugurate here a new series of recordings, with its own distinctive artwork, devoted to the vast and multifaceted musical heritage of the Eternal City.