Galuppi was almost universally admired during his lifetime. The English musician and historian Charles Burney, visiting him in Venice in 1770, described him as ''natural, intelligent and agreeable... [with] very much the look of a gentleman'' and considered him to be one of the best composers of the age. Yet for all his contemporary fame, which included the documented admiration of Salieri, Hasse and C. P. E. Bach, his music was largely forgotten after his death and except for one or two instrumental works has remained so ever since.
This new recording contains just two of his multi-sectioned motets, a type of music that Galuppi must have often been asked to write in his capacity as both Maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica and Maestro di coro at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice. The style is for the most part characterized by mellifluous and apparently unendingly graceful melodies carefully and ingeniously interwoven with string writing, the balance between the two being nicely captured here by Lesne's soloists and the instrumentalists of Il Seminario Musicale.
Yet Galuppi's music is not without its moments of drama too; the ''genius and fire'' which Burney so admired is revealed in a number of moments in both motets, such as the bass solo ''Redemptionem misit'' from Confitebor, whose heroic and virtuosic character is handled with ease and conviction by Peter Harvey. Indeed, the frequent use of contrasts of timbre, texture and 'archaic' and 'modern' styles is one of the principal ways in which the architecture of this music is conveyed. As for Veronique Gens, she is the delight of this disc, with a fresh and open bloom on the voice which radiates the seductive power of Galuppi's vocal lines to perfection. Recommended.'