Classical

Agostino Steffani - Duetti da Camera (Curtis) [1981]

2011-02-17T19:37:31Z

Agostino Steffani - Duetti da Camera (Curtis) [1981]


01 - Tu m'aspettasti al mare
02 - M'hai da piangere un di
03 - Io voglio provar
04 - Placidissime catene
05 - Gia tu parti                               play
06 - E perche non m'uccidete
07 - No, no, no, non voglio se devo amare       play
08 - Liberta! Liberta!

Daniela Mazzuccato, soprano
Carolyn Watkinson, mezzosopran
Paul Esswood, countertenor
John Elwes, tenor

Alan Curtis, harpsichord & direction
Wouter Moeller, violoncello continuo

Agostino Steffani, (b. July 25, 1654, near Venice [Italy]—d. Feb. 12, 1728, Frankfurt am Main [Germany]), composer, singer, cleric, and diplomat, celebrated for his cantatas for two voices.

Steffani studied music in Venice, Rome, and Munich, where he served the Elector of Bavaria from 1667 to 1688, becoming by 1681 director of chamber music. He left Munich and entered the service of the Duke of Brunswick, later elector of Hanover. After some years he ceased to be musical director, however, and entered upon a new career. While continuing to practice music, he became important as a diplomat based in Düsseldorf (1703–09), going on several missions and acting for a short time as ambassador in Brussels. He returned to Hanover in 1709. It was he who induced Handel to settle in Hanover and hence, indirectly, in London, when the new elector became King George I. Steffani was ordained in 1680 and later became papal protonotary for north Germany, with the status of bishop. He composed about 20 operas, most of them before 1700. It was, however, his numerous chamber duets in cantata form—following, with considerable melodic and structural distinction, the models of Luigi Rossi, Giacomo Carissimi, and Alessandro Stradella—that won for Steffani a European reputation; more than 100 of these are known.

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Agostino Steffani - Stabat Mater (2013)

2017-04-11T15:11:16Z

Agostino Steffani - Stabat Mater (2013)

Stabat Mater
01. I. Stabat Mater dolorosa
02. II. Cujus animan gementem
03. III. Quis est homo qui non fleret
04. IV. Pro peccatis suae gentis
05. V. Vidit suum dulcem Natum
06. VI. Eja Mater, fons amoris
07. VII. Fac me vere tecum flere
08. VIII. Virgo virginum preclara
09. IX. Fac, ut portem Christi mortem
10. X. Fac me plagis vulnerari
11. XI. Inflammatus et accensus
12. XII. Quando corpus morietur

13. Beatus vir
14. Non plus me ligate
15. Triduanas a Domino
16. Laudate pueri
17. Sperate in Deo
18. Qui diligit Mariam

Cecilia Bartoli - soprano
Nuria Rial - soprano
Yetzabel Arias Fernandez - soprano
Elena Carzaniga - mezzo-soprano
Franco Fagioli - countertenor
Daniel Behle - tenor
Julian Pregardien - tenor
Salvo Vitale - bass

Coro della Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
I Barocchisti
Diego Fasolis – conductor

Agostino Steffani, roughly contemporary with Arcangelo Corelli, worked mostly in Germany and was known across the continent for his operatic music. Some of it was championed by mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli on her daring Mission album. Now Bartoli, properly more in the background as part of a sacred-music ensemble, returns with an album of Steffani's religious music, for which he was equally renowned. She joins a group of fine soloists, many of whom will be familiar to early music devotees and quite worthy of the broader audience association with Bartoli and the major Decca label will bring. The vigorous instrumental ensemble I Barocchisti, its leader Diego Fasolis, and the commendably sizable Swiss Radio Choir are all top-notch. As for the music itself, the six sacred pieces (psalms, antiphons, motets) that conclude the album give the best idea of the diversity of Steffani's style. Some are partly in the pure Palestrina traditional unaccompanied choral style; some are in the Italian style of the middle 17th century with grand oppositions of choral groups; and some reflect up-to-the-minute solo vocal writing. Bartoli fans will naturally gravitate toward an example of the latter, Non plus me ligate (track 9), and it's gorgeous. But Bartoli, whose voice has taken on some fascinating burnished tones that she is allowed to let speak for themselves here, is also featured prominently in the main attraction, the Stabat Mater, which stands somewhat apart from the rest of the music and fell into disuse soon after Steffani's death, probably because it was already somewhat old-fashioned. But it is old-fashioned in the way that Bach's music is old-fashioned. Like Pergolesi's setting of this somber text, it was the composer's swan song, written at the end of his long life, and it is a tragic work indeed. It might be beautifully paired in performance with the Pergolesi work. Bartoli and her gorgeous lower register have plenty to do, but the spotlight at the end falls on the male soloists, Daniel Behle, Julian Prégardien, and Salvo Vitale, whose trio work is positively sepulchral. This is a gorgeous performance of a work unjustly neglected by music history. Highly recommended. ---James Manheim, AllMusic Review

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Agostino Steffani - Tassilone (Tragedia per musica 1709) [1977]

2018-10-09T14:55:00Z

Agostino Steffani - Tassilone (Tragedia per musica 1709) [1977]


1. Tassilone I		1:16:08
2. Tassilone II		1:08:36
3. Tassilone III	  32:51

Soloists of the Clarion Opera Group of New York:
McCoy, Foldi, de Gaetani, von Reichenbach, White, Bonazzi, Williams, Murcell
Newell Jenkins - conductor

NPR, 13 nov 1973, Alice Tully Hall, New York, live
Broadcast transcription with narration, never offered for sale.

Agostino Steffani, a remarkably versatile gentleman who flourished in German courts around the turn of the 18th century, is a name in the history books to listeners today, but he was admired by Handel and—as Tuesday night's performance of his opera “Tassilone” at Alice Tully Hall demonstrated amply—for good reason. Continue reading the main story

“Tassilone,” presented in a semistaged version by Clarion Concerts under Newell Jenkins's baton, was written in 1709 but evidently had never before been performed in this country.

Steffani's opera, consisting predominately of a string of lovely, stirring arias awl duets, proved to be one of the more substantial exampies of its bel canto type. The libretto, purest Gilbert and Sullivan in its endless complications, is about the efforts of a duke named Tassilone to escape death for plotting against Charlemagne or Carlo Magno, in this version). Counterplots abound, and so do juicy roles for stylish singers.

To a surprising extent, this performance had the necessary voices. Jan De Gaetani, as the Emperor's daughter Rotrude, gave the kind of performance, at once passionate and precise, that so seldom ennobles our opera houses. Elaine Bonazzi as Gismonda and Susan von Reichenbach as Teodata were satisfactory, if not so gratifying vocally.

Tenors of real quality filled the parts of Gheroldo (Robert White), Adalgiso (Sidney Johnson), and Tassilone (Seth McCoy), and Mr. White earned the most cheers for his strong, agile singing. Only Mr. McCoy seemed hard pressed at times in the face of Steffani's decorative line, with its swells and trills and sustained tones, while John Williams, a countertenor, was in his element as Sigardo. Andrew Foldi, while not the ideal Carlo Magno, managed the bass coloratura fairly well, and Raymond Murcell was an able Guido.

Despite occasional raggedness in the orchestra, Mr. Jenkins conducted with sympathy for the baroque idiom, and Agostino Steffani owes him a debt for unearthing this 264‐year‐old work. ---Peter G. Davis, nytimes.com

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Agostino Steffani – Danze e Ouvertures (2013)

2015-01-24T17:22:11Z

Agostino Steffani – Danze e Ouvertures (2013)


01. Orlando generoso: I. Ouverture
02. II. Menuet
03. III. Prelude: Tres viste
04. IV. Gavotte
05. V. Menuet
06. VI. Bourree
07. VII. Gigue
08. Marco Aurelio: Sinfonia
09. Henrico Leone: I. Ouverture
10. II. Air: Grave
11. III. Prelude pour les Demons: Tres viste
12. I trionfi del fato: Ouverture
13. Le rivali concordi: Sarabande. Tres lentement
14 Tassilone: Sinfonia
15. Niobe, regina di Tebe: I. Ouverture
16. II. Ritornello tiberino
17. III. Terremoto
18. IV. Marcia di Creonte
19. La lotta d'Hercole con Acheloo: Ouverture
20. I trionfi del fato: Les Ombres. Grave
21. Le rivali concordi: Ouverture
22. Henrico Leone: Chaconne
23. Briseide: Ouverture
24. Orlando generoso: Gsavotte en Rondeau
25. La superbia d'Alessandro: I. Ouverture
26. II. Air: Tres viste
27. III. Menuet
28. IV. Gavotte
29. V. Air: Tendre
30. VI. Air: Viste
31. Alcibiade (La liberta contenta): I. Ouverture
32. II. Gavotte
33. III. Passepied en Rondeau
34. IV. Gigue
35. Servio Tullio: Sinfonia
36. I trionfi del fato: I. Sarabande. Lentement
37. II. Premier Rigaudon - Second Rigaudon
38. Niobe, regina di Tebe: Gavotta
39. La lotta d'Hercole con Acheloo: I. Premier Air: Lentement - Viste - Lentement
40. II. Second Air pour les mesmes: Gigue
41. III. Troisieme Air pour les mesmes. Sarabande
42. IV. Gigue da capo
43. Amor vien dal destino: Introduzione al drama

Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera
I Barocchisti
Conductor - Diego Fasolis

The booklet to this release freely concedes that Agostino Steffani (1654-1728) wrote no instrumental music, making the present collection unusually obscure in terms of repertoire for a major-label release. What you get is a set of operatic overtures and dance excerpts from operas, similar enough to what might be presented on an album of instrumental music, from operas 150 years later. But until his operas were championed by Cecilia Bartoli, few had heard of Steffani, who was a leading star of vocal music in Germany in Corelli's day and was listened to all over the continent. It all goes to show how the Baroque revival is no longer confined to small specialist labels. The chief interest in these little pieces lies perhaps in their influence. The "danze e ouvertures" title, partly Italian and partly French, suggests what's going on here: the music, well before Bach and Couperin, contains multiple national styles. The overtures often contain a slow introduction and a fast conclusion, but the fast part consists of Italianate operatic-dramatic music, not French formal dance music. Most of the music here is receiving its recorded premiere, but it would have been well known when Bach was young, and it is ancestral to both the general dance suite and the church and chamber sonata. The performances by I Barocchisti and its leader, Diego Fasolis, are ideal: they have Fasolis' trademark vigor, and they capture what was new and exciting about the music at the time. Though no more than a few minutes long, some of the pieces have vivid programmatic effects, including in one case battle music complete with a big bass drum. You may never have heard of Steffani, and the primary interest of this album may be to Baroque fans, but Decca is right to take a chance on it: anyone can enjoy it. ---James Manheim, Rovi

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Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble play Agostino Steffani (2017)

2017-08-16T14:24:16Z

Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble play Agostino Steffani (2017)


-Agostino Steffani : Tengo per infallibile (duo pour soprano et basse)
-Francesco Corbetta : Sinfonia à due pour guitare et basse continue
-Agostino Steffani : Quanto care al cor (duo pour deux sopranos)
-Girolamo Frescobaldi : Chaconne pour harpe et basse continue
-Agostino Steffani : E perchè non m’uccidete (duo pour soprano et ténor)
-Georg Friedrich Haendel : Trois leçons en sol mineur - Sonate Larghetto HWV 580 /
  Capriccio HWV 483 / Menuet HWV 434/4
-Agostino Steffani : Su, ferisci, alato arciero (duo pour deux sopranos)
-Agostino Steffani : Occhi belli (duo pour soprano et ténor)
-Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger : Toccata pour théorbe
-Agostino Steffani : Gelosia (duo pour soprano et ténor)
-Georg Friedrich Haendel : Col partir la bella clori pour viole de gambe
-Agostino Steffani : Fulminate (duo pour soprano et basse)
/
Boston Early Music Festival Instrumental Ensemble:
Paul O’Dette - archlute & Baroque guitar
Stephen Stubbs - theorbo & Baroque guitar
Maxine Eilander - Baroque harp
Michael Sponseller - harpsichord
Erin Headley - viola da gamba

Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble:
Amanda Forsythe - soprano
Emöke Barath - soprano
Colin Balzer - tenor
Christian Immler - bass-baritone

5. February 2017, Sendesaal Bremen

Co-artistic directors Stephen Stubbs and Paul O’dette unite an all-star roster of musicians from the Boston Early Music Festival–the largest and among the most important festivals of its kind. An ensemble of six instrumentalists and four singers performs an enchanting selection from the chamber duets of Agostino Steffani punctuated with instrumental interludes. Considered his crowning achievements by his contemporaries–as well as the composer himself–Steffani’s duets became a model of contrapuntal writing for later composers, including George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. --- follytheater.org

The chamber duets of Agostino Steffani (1653-1728) represent music well worthy of being exhumed not only for study and historical evaluation, but for the more practical and pleasant purposes of performance. These compositions for two voices and basso continuo, of which there are approximately one hundred complete duets extant, were written probably between the years 1689 and 1716, although it is impossible to affix any certain dates to them. They were generally written for persons attached to the court at Hanover to be used for personal performance, or commissioned as gifts for the courtier or lady in favour at the moment. Thus some of the duets are prefixed with initials, but the identity of the recipients of these charming gifts is unfortunately not ascertainable.

The duets, some of them in autograph, some in the handwriting of Steffani's secretary and copyist, Gregorio Piva, others in unidentifiable handwriting, are preserved in libraries and museums in England and on the continent. The Electoral court at Hanover, which was the scene of Steffani's greatest achievements both politically and musically, at this time was far from being a small provincial center. It was known throughout Europe for its brilliance and gaiety stimulated and encouraged by the wit and taste of the Electress Sophie (whose paternal grandfather was James 1) and her children, and the Elector, Ernst August, whose love of music and the theater accounted for the cosmopolitan aspect of this small German court. Italian musicians, led by the famous violinist Farinelli together with French musicians comprised the major part of the court orchestra, and the very few German players attached to it received far less in salary than did these imported performers.

French comedies were presented by companies of French actors, and during the carnival season, a month of masques, entertainments, comedies, operas, balls, and all manner of frivolity after the Italian manner, Hanover was thronged with visitors no only from other German principalities but from neighboring countries as well. Steffani, arriving here around 1688, soon distinguished himself with his operas written expressly for Ernst August and performed in the beautiful new theater which the latter's councillors had built for him in order to discourage his protracted sojouns in Italy. But greater than the acclaim won for Steffani by his operas was the reputation and recognition gained through his chrumber duets. Handel openly admitted his indebtedness to Steffani for providing him with such inimitable models whose beauty he could match but not surpass. Reinhard Keiser, a rival opera composer poser in Hamburg, was said to have "lain in wait" for each new Steffani duet in order to study its effects. Such present historians as Paul H. Lang assert that Bach himself took the Steffani compositions as patterns for his cantata duets, as well as for the duets in the B minor mass.

Johann Mattheson, a contemporary musician, critic, and commentator from whose writings we learn a great deal about the then current scene, considered Steffani unsurpassed in this field of composition. Charles Burney, born two years before Steffani died and therefore close enough to him to report first-hand the continuing influence and popularity of the duets, recorded that they were dispersed and sung throughout all of Europe.

Sir John Hawkins in his General History of the Science and Practice of Music published in 1776, included one of the duets and giving in the biographical notes on Steffani an expression of the esteem with which the latter was regarded in his time. Hawkins also gives what he records as a verbatim account of Steffani's first meeting with Handel, as reported by Handel, in what are presumably the latter's own words. ---Thesis (M.A.),Boston University

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Steffani - Niobe, regina di Tebe (2010)

2014-06-16T16:18:37Z

Steffani - Niobe, regina di Tebe (2010)


1. Act I
2. Act II
3. Act III

Anfione ..... Jacek Laszczkowski (Soprano)
Niobe ..... Veronique Gens (Soprano)
Nerea ..... Delphine Galou (Contralto)
Clearte ..... Tim Mead (Alto)
Tiberino ..... Lothar Odinius (Tenor)
Manto ..... Amanda Forsythe (Soprano)
Tiresia ..... Bruno Taddia (Baritone)
Poliferno ..... Alastair Miles (Bass)
Creonte ..... Iestyn Davies (Countertenor)

Balthasar Neumann Ensemble
Thomas Hengelbrock  - conductor

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - London
(September, 2010)

As a composer, Agostino Steffani (1653-1728), who was also a diplomat and churchman, bridged the gap from Monteverdi and Cavalli to Handel, a span of about half a century, from where not much opera is currently performed. Today he is remembered for his chamber duets, which had a strong influence on Handel. A few years ago, Thomas Hengelbrock ‘rediscovered’ Steffani’s last opera “Niobe, Regina di Tebe” and had it staged at the Schwetzingen Festival in 2008. It is more-or-less this production that came to Covent Garden, with Hengelbrock’s specialist Balthasar Neumann Ensemble. There was a previous revival, in August 1977 at Teatro Accademico Castelfranco Veneto and the following November in Alice Tully Hall in New York City, so there seems a lot of fuss about a so-called rediscovery.

The opera’s 1688 premiere, which was for the opening of the remodeled Munich Hoftheatre, must have been quite something: the work calls for thunderbolts, earthquakes, transformations, and dragons, all to show-off the theatre’s stage machinery. This production is similarly full of effects: fire, clouds, evocative lighting, all within the confines of an exterior of a grand house. Having said that, the opera itself is dull, with the story going nowhere, and being so very emotionally shallow. Often the singing was beautiful, and the funny moments were successfully conveyed, but the supposedly chilling or frightening aspects were unexciting, and overall there was a lack of emotional clout: more a criticism of the opera rather than the performance.

The cast is universally strong, led by ‘male soprano’ Jacek Laszczkowski as Anfione, King of Thebes. Countertenor Iestyn Davis sings Creonte, and both sang securely and invested their words with colour: a rare gift for voice-types such as these. Alistair Miles’s Poliferno, who with Creonte provide some comic relief as a bumbling pair, was notable for the occasional biting viciousness – delightful – and the eponymous queen was sung by Véronique Gens with imperious conviction.

The orchestration is rich, the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble an expert exponent of the required idiom. There was much to enjoy in the scoring: a meaty overture (it would make a great wedding march), some jazzy percussion, vibrant flutes, and even a bassoon, along with the usual ‘period’ instruments one would expect. The extensive continuo section never sapped momentum from the drama. On the whole, it is a curious relic of an opera, with a successful staging – barring some stupidity such as chairs being thrown about, and some weird and wholly unnecessary dancing – something worth catching as it is unlikely to come back. --- classicalsource.com

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