VIVALDI Jupiter (Thomas Dunford)
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Thomas Dunford
Genre:
Opera
Label: Alpha
Magazine Review Date: 01/2020
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 78
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ALPHA550
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Farnace, Movement: Gelido in ogni vena (Act 2, scene 6) |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Lea Desandre, Soprano Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Juditha Triumphans, Movement: ~ |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Lea Desandre, Soprano Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Concerto for Bassoon and Strings |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Peter Whelan, Bassoon Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Nisi Dominus, Movement: Cum dederit |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Lea Desandre, Soprano Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Concerto for Cello and Strings |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Bruno Philippe, Cello Jupiter Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Giustino, Movement: Vedro con mio diletto |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Lea Desandre, Soprano Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Concerto for Lute and Two Violins |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Thomas Dunford, Composer |
(L') Olimpiade, Movement: Mentre dormi, Amor fomenti |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Griselda, Movement: Agitata da due venti |
Antonio Vivaldi, Composer
Jupiter Thomas Dunford, Composer |
We are the ocean |
Jupiter, Composer
Jupiter Lea Desandre, Soprano Thomas Dunford, Composer |
Author: Richard Wigmore
For its mix of irrelevance and pretentiousness (‘music is the homeland of infinite possibility, freedom and sublimated time’), Alpha’s perfunctory booklet note takes some beating. The performances from the Baroque A listers of Jupiter, every one a soloist, deserve better. The overwhelming impression left by this mixed Vivaldi programme is of chamber music delightedly shared among friends. In the three concertos, including the ever-popular one for lute, the players create a spirit of Carnivalesque improvisation. Phrasing and colours are never predictable. Peter Whelan’s dazzlingly agile bassoon is at once clown, acrobat and – in the central Largo – melancholy poet. With his richly coloured tone, cellist Bruno Philippe brings a raw, visceral energy to the cello concerto’s Allegros, egged on by strumming, pounding continuo; and he and lutenist/director Thomas Dunford evoke images of the misty Venetian lagoon in their dreamily floated slow movements.
Lea Desandre, her bright high mezzo flecked with deeper tints, shows comparable style and imagination in a vivid clutch of arias. In ‘Gelido in ogni vena’, from Farnace, she and her lacerating string accomplices suggest a soul traumatised (Farnace is ‘frozen’ with horror at his responsibility for his son’s imagined death, though you won’t deduce that from the booklet). For all her eloquence, Desandre misses a sense of underlying urgency in an aria from Giustino, sung by Emperor Anastasius as he prepares for battle. Conversely, some may find her coloratura, while undeniably exciting, too manically driven in Vagaus’s invocation to the Furies from Juditha triumphans. But Desandre is at her most beguiling in Juditha’s ‘Veni, veni’, partnered by chalumeau-as-turtle-dove, and a tenderly phrased sleep aria from L’Olimpiade. A ‘shipwreck’ solo from Griselda, desperate in the right sense, provides a thrilling Vivaldian finish from singer and players. A pity we have to take the aria’s context, here and elsewhere, on trust.
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