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Antonio Caldara (c1670-1736) Cantatas for solo countertenor. Click to activate the English subtitles for the presentation (00:00-02:36) Sonata da camera Op.2 No.3 I. Preludio (00:00) II. Allemande (01:21) III. Giga (04:00) D’improviso (05:46) Sonata a tre Op.1 no.5 in E minor I. Grave (16:00) II. Vivace (18:18) III. Adagio (20:15) IV. Vivace (22:51) Vicino a un rivoletto (24:11) Medea in Corinto (44:42) Soffri, mio caro Alcino (59:25) Countertenor : Gérard Lesne Il Seminario musicale Recorded in 1990 Find CMRR's recordings on Spotify : The catalogue of Caldara's works, although incomplete for the most part, includes some hundred and fifty operas, oratorios, dramatic cantatas and occasional works, as well as a large quantity of sacred music (including fifty masses and more than two hundred motets), five hundred canons, over forty madrigals, about three hundred secular cantatas for solo voice and a great deal of music for various instrumental ensembles. But what Caldara did have in common with Vivaldi, and perhaps to an even greater extent than him, was his incredible fecundity, unusual even for a period in which music was produced in great quantities to meet a demand for both public and private consumption that was as insatiable in terms of quantity as it was fickle with respect to stylistic fashions. Thus, the expression furie de composition (frenzy of composition) used by De Brosses in his famous account of Vivaldi (1739) applies equally well to Caldara, whose intense productivity showed no sign of flagging with age. In fact, his sound craftsmanship enabled him to maintain a steady outflow of works at a pace that would have been unthinkable to the Romantics, whose titanic struggle with large forms required years of patient and painstaking effort. In a letter to Brahms in 1890, his friend Mandyczewski wrote of Caldara's solo cantatas in glowing terms: 'similar to Handel's, not as long, but with great inner beauty, I would almost say beatitude' — what would Brahms have thought had he known that during a period of one month, between 29 June and 29 July 1732, Caldara, then aged 62, composed twenty-one cantatas, when he himself had taken twenty-one years to finish his First Symphony? Mondonville - Grands Motets, Dominus regnavit, In exitu Israel P° (Cent. rec. : William Christie) : Baroque composers PLAYLIST (reference recordings) :
