Rinaldo Alessandrini, continued

Program: #25-38🏆   Air Date: Sep 15, 2025

Giovanni Legrenzi: Mottetti. Naive OP 30579.

Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano dedicate their new album to the motets of Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690), a very influential composer of the seicento, and a reference even after his time in Italy. The name Giovanni Legrenzi, almost contemporary with Carissimi and Lully, is largely unknown today. And yet his reputation during and after his time, far exceeded the walls of Saint Mark’s in Venice, where he officiated from 1685 until his death: his numerous pupils included Lotti, Caldara and Vivaldi, his themes were borrowed by Bach and Handel, and he composed in all musical genres, instrumental and vocal, sacred and profane. 

It is from these four publications devoted to the motet in Legrenzi’s lifetime that Rinaldo Alessandrini has drawn the pieces for this new programme. 

This intimate repertoire, in which each voice is a solo part, is typical of the style: in Latin, alternating from prose to poetry without necessarily keeping to biblical content, the thirteen motets are here sustained, as often in the stile moderno, by a discreet continuo. 

The faithful Sonia Tedla (soprano), Elena Carzaniga (contralto), Valerio Contaldo and Raffaele Giordani (tenors) and Salvo Vitale (bass) share the vocal lines. Their management of phrasing and polyphony, in one breath, but richly varied, is ideal for these sacred works imbued with a serene, sometimes exultant, feeling of hope. 

The variations in numbers, from two to five voices, the rich style playing on echoes or parallelisms, and the subtle dosage of intensities inspire almost theatrical contrasting dialogues, always focused on expression and meaning.  The final Salve Regina, suspended in time, with its magnificent close harmonies and sibilant consonants, concentrates all these qualities in itself, as a powerful and sensual work in its own right.

Stradella: Mottetti. Naive OP 7192.

From BBC Classical Music: Alessandro Stradella’s dissolute life and dramatic murder in 1682 have inspired a handful of operas and a romanticised novel, yet his music has been surprisingly neglected in more recent times. 

The Concerto Italiano’s new release, therefore, makes a very welcome addition to the catalogue, presenting a handful of world-premiere recordings in new editions by Rinaldo Alessandrini – the ensemble’s founder and director since 1984. 

We’re treated to five motets and two instrumental works revealing that Stradella’s remarkably varied idiom is refined, expressive and felicitous – notwithstanding his lurid autobiography.

The album includes a series of Marian motets whose fragrant texts and lyrical, often florid, lines are beautifully realised by Concerto Italiano. 

Particularly lovely are the soprano duets of In tribulationibus which showcase the radiant voices of Monica Piccinini and Sonia Tedla. 

Stradella’s fervent setting of Sistite sidera is another highlight, Tedla’s agile and effortless soprano stylishly supported by pliant and responsive instrumental playing.The most substantial work on the album is Convocamini, congregamini, whose text and evocative music describe Lucifer’s attempts to unite the spirits of Hell against the Virgin. 

Stradella’s theatrical writing includes a series of virtuosic display pieces for each of the five soloists as well as some intensely expressive ensemble writing. 

Bass Gabriele Lombardi makes for a characterful and bellicose Lucifer and the ensemble is well balanced in Naïve’s fine recording. 

In sum, this revelatory album is a wonderful way to celebrate Concerto Italiano’s 40th birthday. Kate Bolton-Porciatti

III. More Bach, Please! Naive OPS 8454.

From Classical a la Carte: Seeing this album’s title, I couldn’t help but picture Oliver Twist with arms stretched out in hunger. But it’s not gruel on offer here – far from it, really, as Rinaldo Alessandrini brings us transcriptions, arrangements and adaptations of Bach, glorious Bach. While there’s nothing new about the concept, this isn’t just a case of going back for seconds. Here is an album that teems with exceptionally joyful and classy playing: it is one for posterity. We open with the Overture in the French Style in B minor, BWV 831, from ClavierÜbung II (one bugbear is Naïve’s eschewal of capital letters – this is, clearly, not the ‘overture in the french style’ – and it looks even more ridiculous in the German). Concerto Italiano do very well to sustain such charged playing, particularly in such a lengthy ouverture movement. Indeed, some of the loveliest playing is just after the eight-minute mark. Charismatic solos from violinist Boris Begelman and viola player Ettore Belli sparkle and chatter. But it’s absurd to single these two out, for the continuo consistently chugs along with zest (with Alessandrini himself on harpsichord). It is truly excellent playing.

The disc’s highlight is the same Overture’s closing movement, titled ‘Echo’. Such movements could easily come across as gimmicky, and Alessandrini does extremely well to craft a structure that entertains from start to finish without feeling the least bit cheap. The playing, especially from Begelman and bassoonist Alessandro Nasello, oozes with slickedback cool. My only musical criticism is the fashioning of the album’s close (for this Overture in G, Alessandrini gathers together movements from different works). Here, the Gigue from BWV 820 feels too abrupt a close: I’m desperate for something equally joyful but with a bit more meat. But perhaps this is exactly the point: my ears, like Oliver’s tummy, are left wanting more – please!