Cecilia Bartoli -Sacrificium

Cecilia Bartoli: Sacrificum – GRAMMY 2011

4000 boys sacrificed yeah year in the name of music.

With this album, Cecilia Bartoli uncovers the extraordinary world of the ‘Castrati’, and sings the glorious music they inspired.

The ‘Sacrificium’ project tells the story of the castrati in all its complexity; its beauty, glamour, controversy and cruelty. The album focuses on the Neapolitan school, which produced superstar castrati including Farinelli and Caffarelli.

‘The age of the castrati’ inspired some of the most virtuosic repertoire ever written for the human voice; elaborate coloratura showpieces and beautiful slow arias, written for the extraordinary vocal abilities of the leading castrati.

Following the international success of Opera Proibita, Cecilia Bartoli uncovers more lost jewels of baroque music, with an album almost entirely composed of World Premiere recordings. For the first time since their record-breaking Vivaldi Album, Cecilia Bartoli is reunited with leading Italian period instrument ensemble Il Giardino Armonico and their director Giovanni Antonini.

Giardino Armonico                                                                                             

ensemble

"Il Giardino Armonico are as Italian as the music itself—brightly colored, individualistic, confident, stylish, arrestingly decorated, bubbling with enthusiasm and... add your own adjectives."

- John Duarte, Gramophone Magazine                                

Giardino Armonico, founded in Milan in 1985, brings together a number of graduates from some of Europe’s leading colleges of music, all of whom have specialized in playing on period instruments. Many of its members are also in demand as international soloists and have appeared in concert with such eminent artists. The ensemble’s repertory is concentrated in the main on the 17th and 18th centuries. Depending on the demands of each program, the group will consist of anything from 3 to 30 musicians.  

Il Giardino Armonico is regularly invited to many festivals all over the world as Musica e Poesia a San Maurizio in Milan, Styriarte Festival in Graz, Salzburger Pfingsten Festival, Osterklang in Vienna, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Festival, Internationale Musikfestwochen in Luzern, Festival de Musique de Montreux-Vevey and has performed in the most important concert halls. Among them are Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Tonhalle in Zurich, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, Glinka Hall in St. Petersburg, Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Konserthus in Oslo, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Oji Hall in Tokyo, Library of Congress in Washington, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York.  

 il Giardino Armonico has been under exclusive contract to TELDEC Classics for a number of years. Its various recordings of works by Vivaldi and other 18th-century composers have met with widespread acclaim on the part of audiences and critics alike and have received several major awards (Award “Fondazione Cini” of Venice, Caecilia Award in Belgium, Diapason d’Or, Choc de la Musique, Grand Prix des Discophiles). Released under the title Il Proteo, their recording of several of Vivaldi’s double and triple-concertos for cello and orchestra, Gramophone Award in October 1996 and the Diapason d’Or. The Brandenburg Concertos were awarded with the Echo-Preis 1998. Other recordings include the works of Handel, Locke and Biber. The ensemble also recorded two CDs for Decca with Cecilia Bartoli: Vivaldi Album (Grammy Award) and most recently Sacrificum.

The ensemble plays regularly with many acclaimed soloists such as Cecilia Bartoli, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Eva Mei, Sumi Jo, Sara Mingardo, Lynne Dawson, Christoph Prégardien, Véronique Gens, Viktoria Mullova and Giuliano Carmignola both in concerts as in opera stage productions such as Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Handel’s Agrippina, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and La Resurrezione, Pergolesi’s La serva Padrona and others.

Giovanni Antonini                                                                                              

conductor

The Italian conductor, Giovanni Antonini, studied flute and recorder in his native Milan, attending the Civica Scuola di Musica and the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva.

In 1985, Giovanni Antonini became a founding member of Il Giardino Armonico (The Harmonic Garden), an original instruments group founded in Milan by a select group of international-caliber period instrument players, all of whom graduated from various European universities and conservatories after specialized study in original instruments interpretation. Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico have been credited with beginning to raise interest in period performance in Italy. In 1989, Giovanni Antonini became one of the directors of the organization and began to conduct the ensemble.

 The most important festivals, such as the Salzburg Easter and Whitsunday Festival regularly invite him. Antonini's conducting of Il Giardino Armonico has included performances of Baroque operas such as Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Georg Frideric Handel's Agrippina, and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's La Serva padrona. He has directed their appearances on the Teldec and London (Decca) labels, winning leading recording awards.

Giovanni Antonini is regarded as one of the leaders of the Italian period instruments movement. He enjoys a successful collaboration with the Kammerorchester Basel and several recordings together are planned. Their Beethoven CD (Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2) was released in 2005, when he also conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Viktoria Mullova to great acclaim. His latest CD with Viktoria, of Antonio Vivaldi’s violin concertos, has won the prestigious Diapason d’Or 2005 for Baroque instrumental music.