Leonardo García Alarcón's 2011 recording of Michelangelo Falvetti's 1682 oratorio Il Diluvio Universale is a reminder, if one were needed, that there are untold treasures of Baroque repertoire waiting to be discovered. The story of The Flood is told economically, but with enough peculiar diversions from the Biblical story to keep listeners on their toes about what's going to happen next. There are personifications of Divine Justice, Human Nature, Water, Fire, Land, and Death (a smugly self-satisfied character who sings a ...
Read More
Leonardo García Alarcón's 2011 recording of Michelangelo Falvetti's 1682 oratorio Il Diluvio Universale is a reminder, if one were needed, that there are untold treasures of Baroque repertoire waiting to be discovered. The story of The Flood is told economically, but with enough peculiar diversions from the Biblical story to keep listeners on their toes about what's going to happen next. There are personifications of Divine Justice, Human Nature, Water, Fire, Land, and Death (a smugly self-satisfied character who sings a triumphant, gleeful little gigue once humanity has been wiped out). This is the first recording of any work by Falvetti and it's a knock-out. Having performers like Leonardo García Alarcón, Cappella Mediterranea, and Choeur de Chambre de Namur in your corner perhaps gives any composer a hand up, but the exceptional quality of the score itself is also easy to discern. The work defies the conventions of its times and often astonishes with its originality and the richness of its...
Read Less
