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Serafino Razzi (b1531) was a Dominican friar who compiled several volumes of the sacred songs known as laude spirituali. This disc opens with O vergin santa, the first couplet of which becomes a refrain. What sounds like an improvised instrumental introduction leads into a dialogue between the voice and one or possibly two upper strings. (The booklet is infuriatingly short on detail.) When other saints are invoked – Mary Magdalene, Cecilia, Martha – the texture is enriched by a second soprano; with the last iteration of the refrain, we are back to just the one voice. Another lauda, Giesù diletto sposo by Razzi’s contemporary Francisco Soto de Langa, is a lively number for two tenors and bass, the stanzas separated by riffs for violin, bass and percussion. If you like performances by L’Arpeggiata you will enjoy this. I preferred the simplicity of Razzi’s O dolcezza, sung unaccompanied, where homophonic phrases for the men alternate with the lone voice of Déborah Cachet’s soprano. The Sinfonia funebre, billed here as composed by Locatelli, is deemed spurious in Grove. It’s a beautiful fivemovement piece for strings, with aching suspensions in the opening ‘Lamento’, a fugal ‘Alla breve’ – still in the minor key – and a touching last movement ‘La Consolatione’. Le Poème Harmonique do it full justice. The rest of the programme is of music by Vivaldi. The Sinfonia al Santo Sepolcro consists of two short movements. Ottavio Dantone and the Accademia Bizantina (Naïve, 8/06) make more of the dramatic pauses in the Adagio molto. The two motets were composed for the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, probably in 1716. Invicti bellate lasts some nine minutes: Eva Zaïcik spins a lovely long line in the central aria, ‘Dux aeterne’, and dazzles with her coloratura in the opening Presto and the final ‘Alleluia’. The most substantial piece is the 20-minute Nisi Dominus, which includes a gentle siciliana for ‘Cum dederit’ and a surprisingly introspective ‘Gloria Patri’, where Zaïcik’s expressive tones are matched by the eloquent playing of Fiona Poupard’s viola d’amore. Throughout the disc, Vincent Dumestre offers well-judged direction of his multihued band, the continuo group featuring theorbo, guitar, colascione and chitarrino as well as keyboard instruments.
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