Max Emanuel Cencic, Julia Lezhneva, Mary-Ellen Nesi – Porpora: Germanico in Germania (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Max Emanuel Cencic, Julia Lezhneva, Mary-Ellen Nesi – Porpora: Germanico in Germania (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:38:13 minutes | 3,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

Until now, Porpora’s Germanico in Germania has, with the exception of one or two virtuoso arias, remained firmly hidden on library shelves. However, during his lifetime Porpora was as famous for teaching singing (one of his pupils was Farinelli) as for his compositions, so it’s no wonder that his score is a veritable feast of vocal delights ripe for resurrection. As a composer, Porpora’s reputation spread throughout Italy, especially to Venice, where he was “maestro delle figlie at the Ospedale degli Incurabili” (one of the city’s famous music schools for orphans) from 1726 to 1733, and Rome, where the Teatro Capranica saw the premiere of Germanico in Germania in February 1732. In Rome, by Papal edict, operas were “all-male”, and this cast was seriously “all-star”. Clearly Porpora enjoyed stretching the singers to their utmost potential, employing every vocal trick at his command. Germanico was played by the experienced alto castrato Domenico Annibali. The en travesti female roles were taken, as was often the case, by young singers at the start of their careers. For this recording boasting another “all-star” cast led by countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic, female roles are of course held by female singers. The excellent Capella Cracoviensis, playing on period instruments, is led by Jan Tomasz Adamus.

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Julia Lezhneva – Vivaldi: Gloria – Nisi Dominus – Nulla in mundo pax (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Julia Lezhneva – Vivaldi: Gloria – Nisi Dominus – Nulla in mundo pax (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:11 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

An organist (he worked with Gaston Litaize in Paris), choirmaster, and conductor, Diego Fasolis is a vital part of baroque music. In 1995 he founded the Vanitas ensemble in Lugano, and then I Barocchisti (“the Baroques”) which represents the refoundation of the famous Società cameristica di Lugano set up by Loehrer in 1961 to which we owe the first great recordings of Claudio Monteverdi’s Madrigals. The ensemble took a great leap forward in its new incarnation under Fasolis’ baton. The Barocchisti recordings have been showered with awards and great international soloists regularly come to collaborate with them, including Philippe Jaroussky, Maurice Steger, Max Emanuel Cencic, and, in recent years, Cecilia Bartoli who has set up a close collaboration.

With Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva and Argentine counter-tenor Franco Fagioli, I Barocchisti offer us a particularly joyful vision of two of Vivaldi’s vocal masterpieces, wreathed in the same slightly-naive halo as worn by the Madonnas painted in all of Venice’s churches. The motet Nulla in mundo pax for soprano and continuo completes this radiant Vivaldi album with its image of an ideal world nestled in a comforting bubble.

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Julia Lezhneva, Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini – Handel (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Julia Lezhneva, Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini – Handel (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:03 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

The emphasis for this album is very much on youth and prodigious talent: at 25, Julia Lezhneva is ideally suited to the soprano arias of the young Handel, who arrived in Italy from Germany as a 21 year old at the beginning of the 18th century.
Lezhneva has been praised for her unforgettable spiritual expression and perfect artistry in Handels music, whether in rapidfire coloratura passages or the gentle radiance that casts a tangible spell in slow music. –The Guardian
She has the perfect partners in Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini whose recordings of music from the Italian baroque are celebrated for their fizzing virtuosity and exquisite cushion of sound –The Independent. For some tracks the orchestra is led by Dmitry Sinkovsky, the extraordinary Russian violinist and one of today s most versatile Baroque musicians.
The music encompasses the best of Handel s operatic and religious works from his years in Florence and Rome: the operas Rodrigo and Agrippina and the oratorios Il Trionfo and La Resurrezione as well as the complete Salve Regina and soprano solo from Dixit Dominus. Best known is the radiant Lascia la spina from Il Trionfo and its later incarnation as Lascia ch’io pianga from the opera Rinaldo
The recording was made in the famously musical and historic Italian city of Cremona in the beautiful auditorium of the Museo del Violino.
„. . . a singer of uncommon ability . . . Her take on Handel s Saeviat Tellus Inter Rigores is marked by rare grace.“ –The Independent
„Julia Lezhneva is at her most accomplished here, providing spirited and focused vocalism, running up and down the scales with effortless abandon and to fine effect . . .“ –BBC Music Magazine

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Julia Lezhneva, Concerto Koln & Mikhail Antonenko – Graun: Opera Arias (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Julia Lezhneva, Concerto Koln & Mikhail Antonenko – Graun: Opera Arias (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:10 minutes | 1,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

11 World Premiere Recordings.

A journey of discovery for Lezhneva, who spent days in a Berlin library unearthing this music.

Incredible undiscovered arias from Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759), one of the most important German composers of Italian baroque opera but almost unknown today.

Music of great virtuosity: vibrant, joyful and fiery arias contrast with tragic and deeply felt laments.

Concerto Köln, one of Germany’s finest period instrument orchestras, are led by young conductor (and pianist) Mikhail Antonenko and feature an array of world-class baroque musicians including violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky and lutenist Luca Pianca

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