The Academia de li Musici under the baton of Filippo Maria Bressan, perform the world premiere recording of Bendetto Marcello’s sumptuous opera ‘Arianna’.

Using early instruments and applying period performance practices the Academia de li Musici draws upon some of the best Italian musicians, including several of international renown. The ensemble is conducted by Filippo Maria Bressan who has profound knowledge of choral music and oratorio, specialising in the performance of early music.

Born in Venice in 1686, Benedetto Marcello learnt the violin from his father but took a dislike to it in favour of singing and counterpoint. In 1707 Marcello was chosen to serve on the Grand Council of the Republic which opened the way to a succession of important posts in the public service. His first musical publication, a set of twelve concertos, appeared in 1708. But it was vocal works, both secular and sacred in large-scale and intimate forms, which were to constitute the core of his output.



‘Arianna’ was first performed in Venice, in the winter of 1726, when Marcello had turned forty and was at the height of his fame. He had just published his ‘L’estro poetico-armonico’, and enjoyed the success in Vienna of a eulogising serenata commissioned for the birthday of the emperor Charles VI.

Marcello was a high-born amateur musician, who had a clear competitive streak in him, he wanted to shine in everything that he did, particularly in the field of music and against the professional musicians with whom he felt he was competing. His ‘Canzoni madrigalesche’, for example, were written with the objective of perfecting the style of Antonio Lotti’s ‘Duetti’, and the title of his own magnum opus (‘L’estro poetico-armonico’) not only recalls, but also goes one better than, Antonio Vivaldi’s Op. 3 (‘L’estro armonico’). It is striking that in the year following his important Viennese commission coincidences can be observed which link his most important works to events that occurred in the Austrian capital. In 1726 Antonio Caldara’s oratorio ‘Joaz’ had been performed at court, and at almost the same time Marcello set the same text.

‘Arianna’ is almost contemporary with ‘Joaz’, and here too the subject is identical to a stage play performed in Vienna the same year, ‘La corona d’Arianna’, with music by the court Kapell-meister Johann Joseph Fux. It was typical of eighteenth-century librettists to insert a wealth of references to contemporary life which frequently resulted in the accretion of many layers of motifs around a single dramatic nucleus, enriching it to the extent that the survival of the work was guaranteed despite the changes in public taste and that of the commissioning patrons.

‘Filippo Maria Bressan’s all-Italian forces give a vivid performance of this fascinating if uneven work… Recommended to any baroque enthusiast who fancies venturing off the beaten track.’
‘The quality of this performance is high, with a fine Italian period-instrument orchestra, the Academia di li Musici, under the attentive direction of Filippo Maria Bressan…Excellent sound, and comprehensive information on the work and its context in the booklet’.
Performance and sound are excellent. Such music can glitter; here the sound is velvety, which is much more appropriate’


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