La strage degl’Innocenti by Antonio Bertali’s (his only surviving Oratorio.)
\nWhilst Bertali tends to write conservatively in his liturgical works, he shows himself as more progressive in his oratorio. He creates extended coherent musical units by using musical cross-references and repeats (e.g. tracks 21\u201324 and 27); some passages are rhetorically daring such as the short trio (track 29) in which the three mothers\u2019 anger is illustrated through noticeable contrapuntal errors. Frequent use of chromaticism and diminished intervals serve as means of text expression, such as the threefold begging gesture \u201csenti, senti, Signore\u201d on a falling tritone which punctuates the recitative of the third counsellor (track 20). Bertali\u2019s mastery becomes fully apparent in the remarkable final chorus in which imitative madrigal style is finely balanced by homophonic writing, and chromatic density by harmonic commonplaces.<\/p>\n
Performers:<\/p>\n
Reut Rivka, Elena Krasaki, Camille Hesketh, sopranos
\nKaspar Kr\u00f6ner, countertenor
\nSatoshi Mizukoshi, tenor
\nYusuke Watanabe, bass<\/p>\n
Tassilo Erhardt, Ben Sansom, violins
\nSally Holman, bass dulcian
\nSteven Devine, single manual, single-strung harpsichord, two-stop chamber organ, regal<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jephte was Carissimi\u2019s most successful and long-lasting composition. Athanasius Kircher printed part of its final chorus already in his Musurgia universalis (Rome 1650), the whole work soon became widely disseminated through manuscript copies, and Handel still drew inspiration from it for his oratorio Samson. The key to the oratorio\u2019s success lies in its text, a paraphrase of Judges 11:27\u201338, which offered Carissimi the material to create a complete drama of varied emotional charge within a short space of time: Before Jephthah takes the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites he vows to God that if he be victorious, he would sacrifice the first living being that comes to meet him upon his return. The ensuing battle scene depicts graphically with warlike music the devastation of the Ammonite army. Jephthah\u2019s triumphant homecoming takes a tragic turn when he is met by his only daughter who in a heroic gesture gives herself up to be sacrificed in order for her father to keep his sacred vow. The final chorus, arguably one of the finest pieces of vocal ensemble music ever written, expresses in increasingly dense chains of dissonant suspensions the Israelites\u2019 grief for Jephthah\u2019s daughter.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":5254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[72],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5479","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-cd","7":"pa_aantal-cds-68","8":"pa_aantal-tracks-147","9":"pa_type-2-cd","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"taxable","14":"shipping-taxable","15":"purchasable","16":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/5479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/5479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6400,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/5479\/revisions\/6400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=5479"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=5479"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zefirrecords.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=5479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}