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A. Vivaldi-Vivaldi: Sacred Works For Soprano And Concertos

Vivaldi: Sacred Works For Soprano And Concertos [SACD]
~ A. Vivaldi

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Product Reviews

This very attractive release from Channel Classics features the terrific British period instrument ensemble Florilegium in performances of three Vivaldi concertos and two sacred vocal works. The group plays without a conductor and the players' shapely unanimity of phrasing and nuanced expressiveness give the performances the character of chamber music. It sidesteps the metric squareness that can plague performances of Vivaldi and let the music breathe and surge organically. The strings have the slight tartness of Baroque instruments and the overall sound of the orchestra has an appealing burnished sheen. This is relatively obscure repertoire and includes a flute concerto that was only discovered in 2010 and is recorded here for the first time, played beautifully by Ashley Solomon, the artistic director of Florilegium. Soprano Elin Manahan Thomas is highly effective in the psalm setting Laudate Pueri and the motet Nulla in mundo. She sings with absolutely unmannered spontaneity and naturalness. Manahan Thomas' voice has an astonishing clarion purity that's nowhere more evident than in "A solis ortu" from Laudate Pueri, in which her sound is piercingly clean and intense. The only blemish in her performance is in the final movement of the motet where in the outrageously demanding melismas her intonation goes very noticeably astray. This may be sacred music, but Vivaldi's vocal lines are anything but austere; they have a ravishing, sinuous lyricism that's as sensual as anything in his operas. The sound of the hybrid SACD is immaculate and natural. Anyone who knows Vivaldi only as the composer of The Four Seasons should take advantage of this disc's offerings of the varied (and vastly more interesting) music he was capable of producing. ~ Stephen Eddins, Rovi

Classical Data

58:48
Vocal
Modern
Elin Manahan Thomas
Wales
Though she launched her solo vocal career relatively late, Elin Manahan Thomas earned the reputation as one of the finest British sopranos of her generation. Some will hear her voice as more appropriate for Baroque sacred works, and while she has scored great success in that genre, she has also achieved acclaim in a wide range of operatic roles and has sung an eclectic choice of repertory in the concert hall. She has taken roles in operas by Handel, Mozart, Berlioz, Bizet, Poulenc, Britten, Menotti, and others and has garnered much praise on the concert stage in works by J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Orff, Britten, and contemporary composers James MacMillan, Judith Weir, John Tavener, and many others. Thomas has appeared at major concert venues throughout the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. and has sung on BBC televsion and radio. She has recorded for Hyperion, Naxos, Coro, and other labels. Elin Manahan Thomas was born in Gorseinon, Wales. She sang in church choirs in her youth and became a member of National Youth Choir of Wales and the Swansea Bach Choir as a schoolgirl. From 1995-1998 she studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at Clare College, Cambridge, on a choral scholarship. She sang in the choir there, often as a soloist, and appeared on several recordings, including on the Collegium Records CD, Blessed Spirit, issued in 2000. Thomas studied voice with Hazel Wood and, from 1999, sang with the Monteverdi Choir under John Eliot Gardiner. She also sang with other choral groups, including the Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort, Polyphony, and the Cambridge Singers. From 2001, she studied in London at the Royal College of Music, where her teachers included Eiddwen Harrhy. She appeared on the 2003 CD John Rutter: Mass of the Children, also on Collegium Records, where she was soloist in the anthem Come down, O Love divine. In 2005 she gave the modern premiere of a lost J.S. Bach work Alles mit Gott, a 1713 birthday ode. Thomas married operatic baritone Robert Davies in 2006. In 2007 she appeared at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London as Belinda in a production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. That same year saw the release of her debut solo album, Eternal Light, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment led by Harry Christophers. A collection of arias and other vocal works from the Renaissance and Baroque eras issued by Universal Classics, the CD hit number two on the classical charts in the U.K. In February 2008 Thomas appeared at Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral in the premiere of John Tavener's Requiem, and the EMI recording of that performance was issued to great acclaim in 2009. On Easter Sunday 2009, Thomas appeared as Mary in Andrew Miller's The Birth of Christ at the Vatican. In December 2011, Thomas performed in Handel's Messiah to acclaim in Norwich and Cardiff, U.K., and at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Zurich Tonhalle Concert Hall. ~ Robert Cummings, Rovi
This very attractive release from Channel Classics features the terrific British period instrument ensemble Florilegium in performances of three Vivaldi concertos and two sacred vocal works. The group plays without a conductor and the players' shapely unanimity of phrasing and nuanced expressiveness give the performances the character of chamber music. It sidesteps the metric squareness that can plague performances of Vivaldi and let the music breathe and surge organically. The strings have the slight tartness of Baroque instruments and the overall sound of the orchestra has an appealing burnished sheen. This is relatively obscure repertoire and includes a flute concerto that was only discovered in 2010 and is recorded here for the first time, played beautifully by Ashley Solomon, the artistic director of Florilegium. Soprano Elin Manahan Thomas is highly effective in the psalm setting Laudate Pueri and the motet Nulla in mundo. She sings with absolutely unmannered spontaneity and naturalness. Manahan Thomas' voice has an astonishing clarion purity that's nowhere more evident than in "A solis ortu" from Laudate Pueri, in which her sound is piercingly clean and intense. The only blemish in her performance is in the final movement of the motet where in the outrageously demanding melismas her intonation goes very noticeably astray. This may be sacred music, but Vivaldi's vocal lines are anything but austere; they have a ravishing, sinuous lyricism that's as sensual as anything in his operas. The sound of the hybrid SACD is immaculate and natural. Anyone who knows Vivaldi only as the composer of The Four Seasons should take advantage of this disc's offerings of the varied (and vastly more interesting) music he was capable of producing. ~ Stephen Eddins, Rovi

Details

A. Vivaldi
Vivaldi: Sacred Works For Soprano And Concertos
Classical & Opera
Classical Composers
10 January 2012
Thomas (Sop) Florilegium Sacd ~ Discs:1 ~ Country:Usa
USA
Channel Classics (Hol) ( CCL )
SACD
32311
723385323112

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