In attempting to select something from the vast pool of solo cantatas left behind by Alessandro Scarlatti, it's hard to know what to highlight. Argentine soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr, a prominent European early music specialist who honed her craft in the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under René Jacobs, casts in her lot with both the elder Scarlatti and Concerto Soave in a recital consisting of three of the elder Scarlatti's solo cantatas in Harmonia Mundi's Alessandro Scarlatti: Bella madre de' fiori. Although the ...
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In attempting to select something from the vast pool of solo cantatas left behind by Alessandro Scarlatti, it's hard to know what to highlight. Argentine soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr, a prominent European early music specialist who honed her craft in the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under René Jacobs, casts in her lot with both the elder Scarlatti and Concerto Soave in a recital consisting of three of the elder Scarlatti's solo cantatas in Harmonia Mundi's Alessandro Scarlatti: Bella madre de' fiori. Although the authenticity of the title work has been challenged, that has not stopped it from being among the most frequently recorded of Scarlatti's cantatas, and the other two -- Poi che riseppe Orfeo and Correa nel seno amato -- are not new to recordings, but the intention here is seemingly to outdo the rest by providing the best. It is a contender; the continuo playing here is superb throughout, with Concerto Soave playing Scarlatti's most slithery chromatics with a sense of naturalism that places the...
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