Cecilia Bartoli

Cecilia Bartoli
Thursday 15 November 2012 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Agostino Steffani
Henrico Leone – overture
Alarico il Baltha – Schiere invitte
Tassilone – Sposa, mancar mi sento … Deh, non far colle tue
La superbia d’Alessandro – Non prendo consiglio
La libertà contenta – overture
Niobe, regina di Tebe – Amami, e vederai
I trionfi del fato – overture
Alarico il Baltha – Sì, sì, riposa o caro … Palpitanti sfere belle
La libertà contenta – Notte amica al cieco dio
Tassilone – Più non v’ascondo; A facile vittoria
INTERVAL: 20 minutes
La libertà contenta – Foschi crepuscoli
La superbia d’Alessandro – Luci ingrate
Henrico Leone – Morirò fra strazi e scempi
Tassilone – Dal tuo labbro amor m’invita
Orlando generoso – overture
Niobe, regina di Tebe – Ove son? … Dal mio petto
La lotta d’Hercole con Acheloo – Aires pour les nymphes
de la rivière
Niobe, regina di Tebe – Dell’alma stanca … Sfere amiche
I trionfi del fato – Mie fide schiere, all’armi
Arminio – Suoni, tuoni, il suolo scuota
Cecilia Bartoli mezzo-soprano
kammerorchesterbasel
Diego Fasolis harpsichord/director
Julia Schröder leader
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Uli Weber/Decca
lagrime
Agostino Steffani:
a man of many missions
The popular history of Western
classical music is often told as a
succession of Bs: that’s Bach to
Beethoven to Brahms to Bartók, and
perhaps Britten, if you’re British!
It’s a neat and tidy story but pretty
misleading even when you add
H for Handel and Haydn, M for
Mozart and W for Wagner. For, if
the rediscovery of the music of the
Renaissance and Baroque periods
over the past 40 years has taught
us anything, it is that our musical
history proceeds by fits and starts,
rarely following a four-lane highway
stretching straight from past to
present. Indeed, what were once
considered to be uninteresting side
roads or even culs-de-sac tell us
much about the making of music
and how it was used by audiences at
different times and in different ages.
And, strikingly, these side roads are
all but invisible from the highway.
This, you could say, is the revenge of
the footnote on the musicologists!
Agostino Steffani, who was born
in 1654 and died in 1728, is one
of those footnotes that deserves to
slip up the page into the body of
the text. And – with a substantial
amount of his music already
recorded, including complete
operas – it’s clear that he represents
a pretty substantial footnote to
the history of early Baroque.
Nevertheless, Cecilia Bartoli intends
to raise his status still further. As
she has told one interviewer, ‘I
wanted to do an early-Baroque
project, that period between the
Renaissance and the true Baroque,
via a composer who was working
in that era of transition. So I started
to research the period, along with
several musicologists, and we came
across the opera composer Steffani.’
‘It’s true, there are no traces of some
compositions. Those that remain
are in London and Vienna – it
was there that I found the scores
… it amazed me how Steffani’s
instrumental writing is so much like
Handel’s, which seems to show that
Handel was influenced by Steffani,
who was 30 years his senior.
Operas like Giulio Cesare, Rinaldo
and Alcina are extraordinarily
similar in style to that of Steffani.
It’s surprising and intriguing.’
Missing links are always intriguing,
though research can sometimes
explain the apparent surprises. Such
as why the manuscripts to a number
of Steffani’s operas are here in
London, in our Royal Music Library?
The answer is because the composer
served at the court at Hanover,
where Handel would later become
Kapellmeister to Elector Georg,
who in 1714 become George I,
thus reconnecting with his former
court musician who now resided
in London. The gaps are not that
difficult to fill, even if the evidence
is little more than circumstantial.
As for Agostino Steffani’s life,
that’s anything but circumstantial,
though his career as a diplomat
has undoubtedly overshadowed
his life as a musician. Born in the
town of Castelfranco Veneto,
in the Veneto region, he was a
choirboy at the Basilica del Santo
in Padua and made his operatic
debut in Venice at the age of 11.
There he was talent-spotted by a
Bavarian aristocrat who took him
to Munich and who seems to have
supported his education, including
time in Rome between 1672 and
1774. The exact nature of the
talent that the German nobleman
had spotted can only be guessed
at. Nor is there any evidence
that Steffani was a castrato.
On his return from Rome Steffani
was appointed court organist
in Munich and for a year he
studied in Paris, where he seems
to have heard the music of Lully.
In less than five years, first in Italy
and then in France, the budding
composer had become familiar
with everything that was up-tothe-minute in late 17th-century
music. That is, of course, the root
problem with Steffani’s subsequent
reputation: for he was an Italian
composer with a distinct interest
in contemporary French music,
particularly evident in his writing for
woodwinds, working in Germany!
Back in Munich, Steffani was
appointed Director of Chamber
Music by the Elector Max Emanuel,
10 years his junior, and produced
chamber duets and cantatas. He
also wrote and saw performed
five operas during the 1680s.
In 1688 Steffani arrived in Hanover
as Kapellmeister. There, he
composed two one-act operas
and six full-length works which
were translated into German
for performances at Hamburg’s
Gänsemarkt Theatre – a civic rather
than court theatre that had become
the operatic centre of northern
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Programme note
Also during the 1680s, Steffani
began a dual career as a diplomat,
becoming Envoy Extraordinary
to the Bavarian Court in Brussels
where his former protector, Max
Emanuel, had been appointed
Imperial Lieutenant of the Spanish
Netherlands. For the remainder of
his life Steffani undertook a variety
of diplomatic missions for several
German princes; having been
ordained in 1680 he acted for the
Roman Catholic Church too. In 1707
he was appointed bishop of Spiga,
a diocese in Asia Minor with no
known Christian souls and in 1709,
having mediated between Austria
and the Papacy, he was appointed
Apostolic Vicar of the North.
To modern eyes and ears, there
might seem to be an unbridgeable
gap between Steffani the composer
and Steffani the diplomat. But the
17th century took a different view:
artists and musicians in vogue
among the royal courts frequently
crossed national borders, making
them eminently suitable emissaries
between one court and another.
Where Peter Paul Rubens led,
Steffani followed. More than that,
Steffani’s dual career reminds us
that Baroque opera was nothing
if not political. Indeed, quite apart
from the quality of his music, this is
precisely the byway that his career
as a court musician in Munich
and then Hanover leads us down.
And in so doing, it offers another
reason for rescuing this particular
career from the footnotes.
Take Steffani’s Henrico Leone, for
example, composed in 1689 for
Duke Ernst August’s brand-new
Italian opera house in Hanover.
The Duke’s dynastic ambitions seem
more convoluted than traditional
Byzantine intrigue. Suffice it to say
that, having been lucky enough to
inherit the Duchy from two childless
older brothers, he was determined
to keep his inheritance intact and to
become one of the lay Electors of
the Holy Roman Empire. Steffani’s
opera was intended to bolster
his ruler’s political ambitions.
As the Duchess is reported as
saying, the story of Henry the Lion
– who ruled over most of what is
modern Germany in the 12th century
– was chosen ‘so that posterity does
not forget all the states that once
belonged to [our] house’. Henrico
Leone can be heard as a hugely
ambitious musical carte de visite,
reminding the ‘Empire’ that Duke
Ernst August’s family had dynastic
form. No parvenus, these BrunswickLüneburgs but descendants of the
Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns.
And no expense was spared when
the opera opened the Duke’s new
opera house. Lest the audience
miss the political point of the piece,
the printed libretto included French
and German translations of the
argomento and a detailed scene-byscene synopsis in both languages.
If anyone in Hanover was still
off-message about the political
ambitions of their would-be
Elector, Steffani was his master’s
voice a second time with La
superbia d’Alessandro, given its
first performance in 1690. Having
compared Duke Ernst August to a
German hero in Henrico Leone,
Alexander the Great at the siege
of Oxydraca was now the model,
with this military hero of the ancient
world personally leading the
assault on the city. Indeed, the fall
of the city to the Macedonians
allowed Steffani and his designers
to plan one of those spectacular
coups de théâtre so loved by
audiences of the Baroque. Musically,
Steffani excelled himself too, with a
prologue and a string of ensembles,
including five duets and three trios.
As Ernst August intensified his
campaign to be numbered amongst
the lay Electors of the Holy Roman
Empire, so opera per se took on
a political meaning. Ever more
lavish productions attested to
the power and the glory of the
ruler who commanded them into
being. So, during the carnival, the
number of productions swelled.
In 1691 La superbia d’Alessandro
was revived alongside Steffani’s
first attempt at a ‘modern’ subject.
The libretto for Orlando generoso
was carved out of Ariosto’s 16thcentury Italian epic poem Orlando
furioso, and it is almost certainly
the first Italian opera to feature the
trials, tribulations and the sorrows
of Orlando. Like its predecessor it
includes an abundance of duets,
but there are more arias in the
score than in any of Steffani’s
other works for the Hanover stage.
Most notable are the echoes of
Lully in the writing, particularly in
the trios for oboes and bassoon.
Steffani’s regular collaborator in
Hanover was the Abbate Ortensio
Mauro, who provided the composer
with the majority of the librettos for
the works written for Duke Ernst
August’s new theatre, including a
later opera I trionfi del fato, which
was given its first performance in
Hanover in 1695. Here Mauro and
Steffani take a kinder view of royal
duty, suggesting that we cannot
necessarily be complete masters
of our destinies. If to err is human,
then perhaps to forgive is ducal!
It is German history again that points
a contemporary political moral in
Tassilone, composed in 1709, six
years after Steffani had taken up
a post at the court of the Elector
Johann Wilhelm in Düsseldorf.
The libretto is carved out of a
treasonous plot against the Emperor
Charlemagne in the eighth century,
but the message is all about German
involvement in the War of Spanish
Succession when most of Europe
was trying to stop Louis XIV putting
his grandson Philip of Anjou on
the Spanish throne. So in Tassilone
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Germany under the direction of
Reinhard Keiser. It was also at the
Gänsemarkt that Handel might be
said to have cut his operatic teeth.
Gheroldo, Prince of Swabia, is a
thinly disguised portrait of Johann
Wilhelm triumphing in German
virtue over his rival Tassilone, who
is accused of treason. Steffani’s
audience would have needed little
prompting to recognise Tassilone
as Max Emanuel of Bavaria who
had sided with France against
the Holy Roman Emperor. Or to
have seen the Emperor Joseph I
of Austria as Charlemagne.
At first sight, politics seems to have
taken a back seat to spectacle at
the first performances of Niobe,
regina di Tebe. Steffani wrote the
opera for the Hoftheater in Munich
in 1688 and it was designed to put
the remodelled stage of the theatre
through its paces. So there are
earthquakes, thunderbolts, clouds
that descend, dragons that ascend,
rocks flying through the air and
even the planets moving across the
heavens. But the story, from Book
VI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, has
a political edge. Niobe, married
to the ruler of Thebes, arrogantly
smashes a statue of the goddess
Leto demanding that her own
children be proclaimed divine. The
Olympians have their revenge in
a story that the audience would
surely have read as a warning to
the Bavarian Elector Max Emanuel
and his Electress Maria Antonia
about royal presumption.
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Alarico il Baltha was composed
the year before Niobe, with what
was understood to be an even
more direct political message for
the ruling House of Bavaria. The
Elector Max Emanuel had recently
helped to liberate Budapest from
the Turks. Alaric the Visigoth,
one supposes, had defeated
Rome for the German Goths.
Not all of Steffani’s operas were fulllength works. La lotta d’Ercole con
Acheloo is a one-act divertimento
drammatico that was first performed
in Hanover the summer of 1689.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses provide
the story of the contest between
Hercules and Achelous for the
hand of Deianira, but the theme
is undoubtedly dynastic marriage
– meat and drink to German
princelings with political ambitions
above the status of their state.
Perhaps the most overtly political
of Steffani’s operas is La libertà
contenta, with a libretto by
Ortensio Mauro and given its
first performance in Hanover
in February 1693. But it was not
intended to be overtly political.
Sophia Dorothea, the wife of the
new Elector of Hanover, who in
1714 would become George I
of Britain, was alleged to have
had an affair with a Swedish
aristocrat Count Philipp Christoph
Königsmarck. Twice the count was
supposed to have tried to help her
escape from Hanover. As for the
Electress, she is known to have sent
messages to Königsmarck with
quotations taken from La libertà
contenta, including a line from
Timea’s Act 3 aria, ‘Whom should
I love? Should I rule with a king or
suffer without a lover?’ The Count
was arrested and mysteriously
disappeared a year after the first
performance of the opera. Neither
Count nor Electress had properly
heeded the moral of the opera
that promiscuity is dangerous
and fidelity a virtue in a story of
the amorous escapades of two
women and five men including the
dissolute Athenian Alcibiades.
The score of Amor vien dal destino
was almost certainly in Steffani’s
luggage when he travelled to
Düsseldorf to take up a new position
at the court of the Elector-Palatine
Johann Wilhelm. The opera was
probably written in Hanover, but the
first performance was in Düsseldorf
in January 1709 when it was one
of two works staged to mark the
Johann Wilhelm’s acquisition of
the Bavarian Palatinate during the
War of Spanish Succession. The plot
is properly Baroque, with Lavinia
engaged to Prince Turnus when
she really loves Aeneas, while her
sister Juturna is head over heels with
Turnus, who is determined to marry
Lavinia. After three acts of emotional
confusion it is revealed by Faunus, a
conveniently found forest god, that
the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia
will produce the Roman nation.
Do the confused lovers have any
choice? And what did the audience
glean from this if not the start of
a great new Palatinate dynasty?
The score of Arminio is dated
Düsseldorf, 1707, and while it bears
no name it is generally presumed to
be by Steffani. Now a high-ranking
diplomat, Steffani would have not
felt able to autograph his scores
so they are generally in the name
of his secretary Gregorio Piva but
even Piva’s name does not appear
on this one. Arminio (or Arminius
in Latin and Hermann in German)
was chief of the German Cherusci
tribe who, in alliance with other
teutons, defeated the Romans at
the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in
the first century AD. Hermann’s
victory ensured that the Romans
were no longer able to extend their
province of Germania across the
Rhine and so the Germans were
given a geographical identity.
Here, indeed, was a history to
flatter the Elector Palatinate.
For over a quarter of a century
Agostino Steffani had devoted
his life and his art to the service of
a succession of German political
masters. Leaving aside his skills
as a diplomat and his gifts as
a composer, the message is
eerily modern, that the political
is sometimes personal but that
the personal is always political. If
Steffani is a footnote in the history
of Western music then he could
be a great deal more interesting
to our ears than some of the main
chapters marked with a capital B.
Programme note © Christopher Cook
Programme note/Texts
Agostino Steffani (1654–1728)
Alarico il Baltha (1687) – Schiere invitte
Alarico
Schiere invitte
non tardate,
su volate
a’ le rapine.
Dispogliate
l’alta Roma,
ch’è già doma,
fra le stragi
e le ruine.
Delay not,
invincible hosts,
come, fly
to your violent deeds.
Despoil
noble Rome,
already overthrown,
amid carnage
and ruins.
Luigi Orlandi
Tassilone (1709) – Sposa, mancar mi sento …
Deh, non far colle tue lagrime
Tassilone
Sposa, mancar mi sento;
guidami in parte, ove mi chiuda gli occhi
tua destra pia. Or che onorato, e certo
moro della tua fede, moro contento.
Beloved wife, I grow faint;
lead me to a place where your blessed hand
may close my eyes. Now that I die in honour,
and in the knowledge of your constancy, I die happy.
Deh non far colle tue lagrime
al mio cor la morte amara.
Perché liet’io spirerò,
a un pensier che t’oltraggiò,
se pietade impetro, o cara.
Ah, make not death bitter
to my heart by shedding tears.
For happily shall I die
from a thought that insulted you,
if I am granted your forgiveness, o beloved.
Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino
La superbia d’Alessandro (1690) – Non prendo
consiglio
Ermolao
Non prendo consiglio,
se non dal furor.
Non cura periglio
desio di vendetta
e zelo d’onor.
I take no counsel,
except from fury.
A desire for vengeance
and zeal for honour
care naught for danger.
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Ortensio Mauro
Niobe, regina di Tebe (1688) – Amami, e
vederai
Niobe
Amami, e vederai
ch’Amor non ha più stral,
vibrolli tutti al seno mio per te.
In quei tuoi vaghi rai
è l’ardor mio fatal,
né v’è fede, che sia pari a mia fé.
Love me, and you will see
that Love has no more arrows,
for he has fired them all at my heart for you.
In your beautiful eyes
burns my fatal passion,
there is no constancy to match mine.
Orlandi
Alarico il Baltha – Sì, sì, riposa o caro …
Palpitanti sfere belle
Sabina
Sì, sì, riposa o caro
acciò che dorma la pena agitatrice a’ tuoi bei lumi
che a’ quei del Ciel recar invidia ponno,
novella Pasitea richiamo il sonno.
Yes, yes, rest my love, that turbulent sorrow
may find repose in your fair eyes,
which do put to envy those of heaven,
as a new Pasithea I summon sleep.
Palpitanti sfere belle
del mio sol, hor v’addormento.
Riposate, e cessate
per rigor d’irate stelle
d’agitarvi nel tormento.
Fair and quivering spheres
of my sun, I lull you now to sleep.
Rest, and be no longer
impelled by angry stars
to twist and turn in torment.
Ma di vapor soave il ciglio intorno
anch’io sento gravarmi.
Palpitanti sfere belle del mio sol…
Inebriati i sensi cedono
à dolce oblio… del mio sol,
hor v’addormento, hor v’addormen…
Yet do I too feel a gentle breath
settle heavily upon my eyes.
Fair and quivering spheres of my sun…
Intoxicated, my senses yield
to sweet oblivion… of my sun,
I lull you now, I lull you…
Orlandi
La libertà contenta (1693) – Notte amica al
cieco dio
Alcibiade
Notte amica al cieco dio,
il mio bene a me conduci.
Guidin l’ombre quelle luci
che son gli Astri del cor mio.
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Mauro
Night, you friend of the sightless god,
lead my beloved to me.
Let darkness guide those lights
that are the stars of my heart.
Texts
Tassilone – Più non v’ascondo
Rotruda
Più non v’ascondo,
affetti miei:
vi sappia il mondo,
e son contenta.
Splenda vivace
la cara face;
quella che aborro,
quella sia spenta.
I hide you no longer,
my affections:
the world shall know of you,
and I am happy.
May the flame I love
shine brightly;
may that which I hate
be snuffed out.
Pallavicino
Tassilone – A facile vittoria
Sigardo
A facile vittoria
la tromba qui m’invita.
E solo amor audace,
armato di sua face,
la furia è che m’irrita.
The trumpet summons me
here to easy victory.
And intrepid love,
armed with its torch,
is the only fury which pains me.
Pallavicino
INTERVAL
La libertà contenta – Foschi crepuscoli
Aspasia
Foschi crepuscoli,
che preparate
l’esequie al dì;
atre caligini,
deh v’affrettate
per celar qui
il volto amabile
che m’invaghì.
Twilit shadows,
you who prepare
the day’s funeral rites;
blackest gloom,
ah, hasten here
to hide
the fair face
that has charmed me.
Mauro
La superbia d’Alessandro – Luci ingrate
Mauro
Ungrateful eyes,
you arouse in this breast
nothing but storms of suffering.
And yet, when I cannot see you,
ungrateful eyes,
I see no serenity.
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Alessandro
Luci ingrate,
sol tempeste di martiro
voi destate in questo sen.
E pur quando non vi miro,
luci ingrate,
nulla veggo di seren.
Henrico Leone (1689) – Morirò fra strazi
e scempi
Henrico
Morirò fra strazi e scempi
e dirassi ingiusti dei
che salvando i vostri tempi
io per voi tutto perdei.
I shall die amid slaughter and destruction,
and, unjust gods, it will be said
that in saving your temples
I lost everything for you.
Mauro
Tassilone – Dal tuo labbro amor m’invita
Tassilone
Dal tuo labbro amor m’invita
a prezzar ancor la vita,
ma non so ciò che sarà.
Se la rabbia del mio fato,
implacabile, ostinato,
o se amor trionferà.
By your lips love invites
me still to value life,
but I know not what will be,
which will be triumphant —
the implacable, immovable
wrath of my destiny, or love.
Pallavicino
Niobe, regina di Tebe – Ove son? … Dal mio
petto
Anfione
Ove son? Chi m’aita?
In mezzo all’ombre solo m’aggiro
e abbandonato, ahi lasso
in abisso d’orror confondo il passo.
Niobe, ahi doglia infinita!
Perduta ho l’alma, e ancor rimango,
e ancor rimango in vita.
Where am I? Who will help me?
Surrounded by shadows I wander
abandoned and alone. Alas, weary
I lose my way in a chasm of horror.
Niobe, ah, infinite sorrow!
I have lost my soul, and yet remain alive,
and yet remain alive.
Dal mio petto, o pianti,
uscite in tributo al mio dolor.
E in virtù de’ miei tormenti,
disciogliendovi in torrenti,
in voi naufraghi ’l mio cor.
Issue forth from my breast,
o tears, in tribute to my grief.
And as you flow in torrents
as proof of my suffering,
let my heart founder in your waves.
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Orlandi
Texts
Niobe, regina di Tebe – Dell’alma stanca …
Sfere amiche
Anfione
Dell’alma stanca a raddolcir le tempre,
cari asili di pace a voi ritorno:
fuggite, omai fuggite
da questo seno o de’ regali fasti
cure troppo moleste, egri pensieri:
che val più degli imperi
in solitaria soglia, ed umil manto
scioglier dal cor non agitato il canto.
To soothe the torment of my weary soul,
I return to you, beloved havens of peace:
flee, flee now
from my breast, o too gruelling cares
and troubling thoughts of regal power:
for the song that rises from an untroubled heart
in a forsaken place and in humble garb
is worth more than empires.
Sfere amiche, or date al labbro
l’armonia de’ vostri giri.
E posando il fianco lasso,
abbia moto il tronco, il sasso
da miei placidi respiri.
Friendly spheres, endow my lips
with the harmony of your revolutions.
And as I rest my weary body,
may the trees and stones be moved
by my peaceful breathing.
Orlandi
Arminio (1707) – Suoni, tuoni, il suolo scuota
Erta
Suoni, tuoni, il suolo scuota
d’oricalchi un lieto fragore.
Ed a voi amiche genti
sian gl’insoliti portenti
di diletto e non d’orrore.
Let the joyful sound of trumpets
ring out, thunder, shake the earth.
And to you good people
may it be an unexpected portent
of delight and not of horror.
Pallavicino
Translations by Susannah Howe
Sources:
British Library, London
Musiksammlung der Österreichischen
Nationalbibliothek, Wien
Performing Editions: © I Barocchisti 2011–12
Editor: Alberto Stevanin
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About tonight’s performers
Opera, New York, Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden, La Scala,
Milan, Bavarian State Opera,
Theater an der Wien and the
Zurich Opera House, as well
as at the Salzburg Festival.
Uli Weber/Decca
Recently, her work has concentrated
on two distinct areas: the Baroque
period and the early 19th century.
In 2008 she launched a project
to mark the 200th birthday of the
legendary singer Maria Malibran.
Cecilia Bartoli mezzo-soprano
For more than two decades Cecilia
Bartoli has been a leading classical
artist, via performances in opera
houses and concert halls around the
world and through her best-selling
and critically acclaimed recordings
for Decca, which in recent years
have centred around the rediscovery
of neglected repertoire. She has won
five Grammys, ten Echos, a Bambi,
two Classical BRITs and the Victoire
de la musique, among many others.
Herbert von Karajan, Daniel
Barenboim and Nikolaus
Harnoncourt were among the
first conductors with whom Cecilia
Bartoli worked. Since then, she has
developed regular partnerships with
renowned conductors, pianists and
orchestras, most recently periodinstrument ensembles including the
Akademie für Alte Musik, Les Arts
Florissants, I Barocchisti, Concentus
Musicus Wien, Ensemble Matheus,
Freiburger Barockorchester,
Il Giardino Armonico,
kammerorchesterbasel, Les
Musiciens du Louvre and Orchestra
La Scintilla. Increasingly, she is
involved with orchestral projects for
which she assumes overall artistic
responsibility, most notably with the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
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Her stage appearances include
performances at the Metropolitan
of her work in disseminating
music among young people.
In 2012 Cecilia Bartoli became
Artistic Director of the Salzburg
Whitsun Festival, choosing the
thousand faces of Cleopatra
as the theme of her first festival.
The 2013 programme is titled
‘Sacrifice – Opfer – Victim’ and
will see, among other highlights,
her stage debut as Norma.
Two years later she took the titlerole in a historically informed
concert production of Norma, with
Thomas Hengelbrock conducting
the Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble
on period instruments. More
recently, Cecilia Bartoli’s striving
towards the re-creation of the sound
and vocal qualities of those times
has resulted in two Rossini stage
productions at Zurich: Le comte Ory
and Otello – the latter seeing her
much lauded debut as Desdemona.
She has also explored the castrato
stars of 18th-century Naples,
releasing the record-breaking solo
album Sacrificium in 2009 and giving
concerts in all the major European
capitals. A further highlight of
that season was the concert
performances of Handel’s Giulio
Cesare conducted by William Christie
at Paris’s Salle Pleyel, with Andreas
Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky.
Among Cecilia Bartoli’s many
awards are an Italian knighthood,
the Italian Bellini d’Oro prize,
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres
and Officier de l’Ordre du Mérite,
Medalla de Oro al Mérito en
las Bellas Artes, Médaille Grand
Vermeil de la Ville de Paris, Léonie
Sonning Music Prize and honorary
membership of the Royal Academy
of Music. At the end of this year she
will receive the prestigious Herbert
von Karajan Prize in recognition
Diego Fasolis harpsichord/director
Among the most acclaimed
interpreters of his generation, Diego
Fasolis combines versatility and
virtuosity whether at the keyboard
or as a conductor. He appears
regularly at leading concert venues
in Europe and the USA and has
made over 100 recordings for
radio, television and on CD.
Since 1986 he has worked at Swiss
Radio as an instrumentalist and
conductor. Since 1983 he has been
permanent conductor of the vocal
ensemble for Swiss Radio Television.
He has been director of the periodinstrument orchestra I Barocchisti
for the past 14 years. He is also in
demand as a guest conductor with
many major international ensembles,
such as Berlin’s RIAS Chamber Choir,
Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca,
Diego Fasolis studied organ with
Eric Vollenwyder, piano with Jürg
von Vintschger, voice with Carol
Smith and choral conducting with
Klaus Knall, obtaining diplomas
in all four disciplines from the
Zurich Conservatory. In addition
to numerous masterclasses with
internationally renowned artists, he
studied organ and improvisation
with Gaston Litaize in Paris and early
music performance technique with
Michael Radulescu in Cremona. He
went on to win prizes at a number
of international competitions.
As an organist, Diego Fasolis
has performed the complete
works of Bach, Buxtehude,
Mozart, Mendelssohn, Franck
and Liszt. In 2011 Pope Benedict
XVI granted him an honorary
doctorate in sacred music.
As leader of the
kammerorchesterbasel, Julia
Schröder collaborates regularly
with conductors such as Giovanni
Antonini, Paul McCreesh, Kristjan
Järvi, Christopher Hogwood
and Paul Goodwin, as well as
performing as a soloist. She has
led the orchestra during tours
with Sol Gabetta, Marijana
Mijanovic, Giuliano Carmignola,
Angelika Kirchschlager, Andreas
Scholl, Giuliano Sommerhalder
and Pieter Wispelwey.
Her discography includes a disc of
Mozart, Haydn and Martin≤ under
Christopher Hogwood and discs of
Fasch and Handel. She performs on
both period and modern instruments
and is equally at home in tango,
improvisation and gypsy jazz.
As a chamber musician, Julia
Schröder has appeared at festivals
in Davos, Gstaad, Luxembourg,
Middleburg, Amsterdam,
Stuttgart and Cologne, playing
with Trio Parnassus, Gidon
Kremer, Christian Zacharias and
Gérard Wyss, among others.
As a soloist she has played with
the Basel Symphony Orchestra,
Camerata Stuttgart and the
Hessischer Radio Symphony
Orchestra. She also appears
as a guest soloist with the
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra
and Il Giardino Armonico.
kammerorchesterbasel
Julia Schröder leader
Julia Schröder and Cecilia
Bartoli have been collaborating
The kammerorchesterbasel prides
itself on a transparent and flexible
orchestral sound, freshness in its
interpretations and, crucially, the
combination of old and new music
in the tradition of Paul Sacher’s
Basel Chamber Orchestra.
About the performers
closely since 2005. Together
they have performed in many of
Europe’s leading concert halls.
Founded in 1984 by graduates
of various Swiss musical
colleges, it performs at major
venues and festivals throughout
Europe, as well as having its own
subscription series in Basel.
As well as working under its own
concertmaster, it also works
with different conductors, such
as Paul Goodwin, Kristjan Järvi,
Paul McCreesh and Giovanni
Antonini. With the latter the
musicians are working on the
cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies,
recordings of the first six of which
have already been released,
earning kammerorchesterbasel a
number of awards. Other notable
releases include a series of discs
under Christopher Hogwood
and Handel recordings under the
leadership of Paul Goodwin. Most
recently, the orchestra received
an ECHO Klassik for its disc of
Telemann with Nuria Rial.
Concerts with soloists such as Cecilia
Bartoli, Sol Gabetta, Magdalena
Kozˇená, Emma Kirkby, Matthias
Goerne, Andreas Scholl, Angelika
Kirchschlager, Christian Tetzlaff,
Sabine Meyer, Julia Fischer, Daniel
Hope, Tabea Zimmermann, Renaud
Capuçon, Pieter Wispelwey, Thomas
Zehetmair, Giuliano Carmignola,
Bobby McFerrin and Emmanuel
Pahud have been highly praised
by public and press alike.
This season kammerorchesterbasel
works with Cecilia Bartoli, Sol
Gabetta, Patricia Kopatchinskaja,
Khatia Buniatishvili, Maria João
Pires, Alison Balsom, Jean-Yves
Thibaudet and Jérémie Rhorer.
Credit Suisse has been the
main sponsor and partner of
kammerorchesterbasel since 2007.
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Concerto Palatino, Orchestra
Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi
and Orquesta Barroca in Seville, as
well as with opera house orchestras
and choirs including La Scala, Milan,
Rome Opera, Genoa’s Teatro Carlo
Felice, the Verona Arena and the
Teatro Comunale in Bologna.
kammerorchesterbasel
Violin 1
Julia Schröder
leader
Fanny Tschanz
Valentina Giusti
Betina Pasteknik
Nina Candik
Violin 2
Anna Faber
Mirjam
Steymans-Brenner
Tamás Vásárhelyi
Elisabeth Kohler
Viola
Bodo Friedrich
Renée Straub
Oboe
Kerstin Kramp
Francesco Capraro
Bassoon
Rhoda Patrick
Trumpet
Simon Lilly
Timpani/
Percussion
Alex Wäber
Harpsichord
Davide Pozzi
Theorbo
Daniele Caminiti
Cello
Martin Zeller
Georg Dettweiler
Double Bass
Stefan Preyer
Flute
Shai Kribus
Kerstin Kramp
Forthcoming
Recitals...
Sun 9 Dec
Renée Fleming
Wed 6 Feb 13
Joyce DiDonato
Wed 8 May 13
Magdalena
Kožená
Book now
barbican.org.uk