Anna Reinhold mezzo-soprano, Guilhem Worms bass-baritone, Ensemble Il Caravaggio, Camille Delaforge
68:13
Klarthe K120
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This CD cleverly alternates extended Baroque compositions dedicated to the Virgin Mary with the mainly anonymous tradition of popular sacred songs on the same subject. The former consist of the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Felice Sances, Alma Mater Redemptoris by Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, In Sanguine Gloria by Isabella Leonarda, O Quam Suavis by Francesco Cavalli and Tarquinio Merula’s Canzonetta spirituale alla Nina Nana, to which more tenuously the group have added Brunelli’s Lamento della Ninfa. This latter piece is played and sung with great energy and imagination, while the anonymous sacred songs and chants exude a suitable folkloric piety. The singers, Anna Reinhold and Guilhem Worms, pass with ease between these two worlds, the latter bringing a knowledge of traditional ornamentation to bear on this evocative music. The instrumental ensemble Il Caravaggio makes a suitably vivid contribution throughout, and the director Camille Delaforge is to be congratulated on an enterprising project brought to a very successful conclusion.
D. James Ross