France's Naïve label has overdone it this time with the electronica-like design for the cover of this release, which gives the buyer little idea of what he or she is going to hear. Even the title is not much help; most of the music does not come from Italy in the years around 1600 nor from Argentina around 1900, and the South American selections are more in the nature of punctuation of the program than the equivalent group the title implies. One might also note that the Spanish accent marks are pointing the wrong way in the ...
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France's Naïve label has overdone it this time with the electronica-like design for the cover of this release, which gives the buyer little idea of what he or she is going to hear. Even the title is not much help; most of the music does not come from Italy in the years around 1600 nor from Argentina around 1900, and the South American selections are more in the nature of punctuation of the program than the equivalent group the title implies. One might also note that the Spanish accent marks are pointing the wrong way in the track list. And there the list of complaints ends. This is a breathtaking vocal recital that, in its way, represents a landmark for the long incorporation of early music in the classical mainstream. The biggest news is that Argentine soprano Verónica Cangemi emerges as a major new talent, capable of handling perhaps the most devastatingly difficult of Vivaldi's operatic arias, the storm aria "Come in vano il mare irato," from Catone in Utica, track 2. But more intriguing is the...
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