Vivaldi’s chamber cantatas – there are 40 of them shared between soprano and alto voices, some with instruments but most with continuo only – have but intermittently enjoyed the privileges afforded by sympathetic performances. Marco Lazzara, the singer on the present disc featuring the four cantatas that Vivaldi wrote for alto voice with instruments and continuo, is a countertenor whose voice is warmly coloured, especially in the lower register, and strongly projected. Intonation is not impeccable, but the occasions on which it falters, mainly in recitative, are few and far between. Lazzara does not have the fully rounded tone of Andreas Scholl, who has recently recorded the best-known of the cantatas here, Cessate, omai cessate, but he is more effective in placing colourful emphasis on the text and, as I have implied, is very fine in the middle to lower reaches of his range. Indeed, of the two, it is he who brings the piece to life with greater dramatic immediacy.
The remaining cantatas will be largely unfamiliar to readers, and there are some musical delights to be encountered. Qual in poggia, for instance, features in each of its two arias a pair of hunting horns which add colour to the textual figures of speech. Lazzara is on tremendous form here and the whole piece comes over with panache. The Genoa Chamber Orchestra is a modern-instrument group which provides sympathetic if over-substantial accompaniment to the voice. Sometimes I felt the need for more in the way of expressive delicacy, especially from the solo violin, but the playing, in all but the second aria of Amor, hai vinto, is clean and disciplined under Antonio Plotino’s direction. A mainly enjoyable disc of rarely performed music, but texts in Italian only, I’m afraid.'