The tag “Volume 1” on this disc of Alessandro Scarlatti cantatas prompts the wild surmise that the most extensive integrale of all time might be in prospect, even greater than that of his son Domenico’s harpsichord sonatas or of Schubert’s Lieder. For Alessandro wrote some 700 cantatas: so it’s four down, around 690-odd to go. Not that there’ll be any complaint from me or many others if they are all as delectable as this. Scarlatti’s range of invention is as wide as his technical diversity, which even in this one genre – and he also wrote about 60 operas – is astonishing. Introductory sinfonias can be, as here, in one, two or three movements or absent altogether (Orfeo); arias can be in da capo form (his favourite) or devisen (“motto”) or strophic, with midway and final ritornellos, as in Bella madre de’fiori, or without, accompanied only by continuo (as throughout in Orfeo) or with imitative or independent violin lines; recitatives are either accompanied or secco, but always expressive, often dramatic. But it is the sheer beauty of the writing that is so compelling, whether in the languishing first cantata here (in which an unidentified “English hero” bids farewell to his family as he goes to fight the foe), the agitation of Ariadne’s betrayal by Theseus, Orpheus’s lament for Eurydice (which calls forth plangent chromatics) or the outpourings of the lovelorn Clori. There are illustrative touches too, like the upward musical haul for Bacchus taking Ariadne up to heaven.
Only one of these cantatas, Gia lusingato, is at present on the Gramophone Database, beautifully sung by Lynne Dawson, but Christine Brandes matches her in artistry. Possessed of a Kirkby-like light and pure-toned voice, she invests all her words with meaning, colouring her tone and dynamics in accordance with the mood, and able to convey fury as well as heartache. Technically, too, she is ideally suited to this repertoire: she is at ease with florid writing (as in the final arioso of Orfeo or the vigorous aria “Vanne, o cara” with violin obbligato in Bella madre), demonstrates a finely controlled messa di voce at the words “Al trono” in Gia lusingato and elsewhere, and is stylish in ornamenting repeat sections. The vitality, freshness and character brought by the Arcadian Academy to their playing, with subtly varied continuo instrumentation, confirms the high opinions of their previous recordings by my colleagues in these pages. An enthusiastic recommendation.'