Italian vocal music

To find a new recording offering four previously unknown relatively major works by a major composer is mouth-watering. Giacomo Carissimi: Oratorios from Musica Fiata (CPO 999 983-2, rec 2003) more or less lives up to its promise. Strictly speaking, only two of the four oratorios (using this term in its broadest sense)-those entitled Persarum rex maxiumus Assuerus (Regina Hester) and Interfecto Sisara principe exercitus Cananeorum-are complete novelties, since Cum vidisset Deus (Diluvium universale) exists in an incomplete copy in Hamburg, while the subject, at least, of Stabat adversus Israel Philisteus in valle Terebinthi (Dialogo del gigante Golia) was previously known from a reference by André Maugars in 1639. Unhelpfully, and also rather discourteously, the booklet fails to mention the source of all four scores: the castle library in Kroměříž, Czech Republic.

All four works are up to Carissimi's usual very high standard. The recitatives are elegantly patterned in the composer's usual manner, slipping in and out of arioso style effortlessly. The choruses crackle with crisp declamation. It strikes me that Carissimi is the one composer of the Italian Baroque who can bear comparison with Schütz (and a few other Germans, including Schein) as a setter, as distinct from merely a painter, of words: by choosing an appropriate speed, rhythm and melodic contour, he miraculously makes the simple sound of a word or sequence of words (for example, 'expellatur, dissipetur, prosternatur, extirpetur'-Haman's command to expel the Jews from Persia) evoke its meaning without any added pictorial or rhetorical effect.

Musica Fiata, under Roland Wilson, perform these oratorios without ripieno singers. Only seven singers are named in the credits, although more were presumably used in Diluvium universale, which calls for a double choir. On the whole, the singers cope very well with Carissimi's demands, with only the occasional rough edge. The instrumental ensemble employs violins, cornetts, trombones, a violone alternating with a lirone, a chitarrone and variable keyboard (organ, harpsichord or regal). The lirone works wonders, as usual in mid-17th-century music, but I am less convinced by the introduction of wind instruments. None are mentioned (unlike the lirone) in the few scattered reports of contemporary performances of Carissimi oratorios at Sant'Apollinare, and in practice they seem wrong, at least to my ears. Quite simply, they rob the music of its sensuous aura. Even when highly dramatic, this remains intimate, 'indoor' music that does not suffer easily the rasp of a cornett or the blare of a trombone.

In stark contrast stands the budget release Carissimi, Oratorios from Consortium Carissimi (Naxos 8.557390, rec 2003), which contains the evergreen Jephte and Jonas, as well as a three-voice serenata, Dai più riposti abissi. Here, the voices are numerous enough (thirteen) to permit a solo/ripieno distinction. There is no comparison between the general quality of the voices and instruments at the disposal of the director, Vittorio Zanon, and those on the Musica Fiata recording: the latter win hands down. However, there is an engaging freshness and commitment about the Naxos performances altogether lacking from the CPO release, as well as some enterprising interpretation (most notably, the splendidly effective accelerando in the depiction of the rising storm in Jonas). Above all, they seem to marry drama to devotion more successfully.

In the musically very interesting serenata two tenors replace the original pair of sopranos. As the booklet correctly states, there is ample evidence for this practice, which is mentioned in the prefaces of Legrenzi's Cantate e canzonette, op. 12 (1676), and Gaffi's Cantate a voce sola (1700). (It is a pity that tenors have been so slow to take advantage of this convention and explore the riches of continuo cantatas for soprano-because, unlike basses, they otherwise have virtually nothing in this genre.)

Another low-priced release, Cavalli, Arias and Duets (Naxos 8.557746, rec 2003), has the happy idea of giving us an anthology of short extracts from no fewer than five early Cavalli operas (Didone, Egisto, Ormindo, Giasone and Calisto); the performers are Mediterranea Concento under Sergio Vartolo. Its title in fact sells the recording a little short, since...