The title of this U.S. release may promise a bit too much; there's no way to know whether the proto-feminist artist Artemisia Gentileschi heard these pieces, and the program certainly doesn't cover the range of music she might have heard (there's no sacred music, for example). The program was devised for live performances at which paintings by Gentileschi and Caravaggio were projected on screens behind the stage. That's not possible in CD or streaming formats, although the graphics include some nice reproductions. It doesn ...
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The title of this U.S. release may promise a bit too much; there's no way to know whether the proto-feminist artist Artemisia Gentileschi heard these pieces, and the program certainly doesn't cover the range of music she might have heard (there's no sacred music, for example). The program was devised for live performances at which paintings by Gentileschi and Caravaggio were projected on screens behind the stage. That's not possible in CD or streaming formats, although the graphics include some nice reproductions. It doesn't matter so much, for the connections between Gentileschi's art and the music on the program are pretty general. A couple of battle pieces are "meant to evoke the battles that Artemisia was forced to wage throughout her life," but otherwise the music could mostly apply to any other Italian artist of the period equally well. The good news is that the performances of these 17th century songs and dances by director Richard Savino and his El Mundo ensemble are sharp and attractive; the...
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