Proms at … Cadogan Hall 2: A Celebration of Barbara Strozzi - 29.07.19

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

13:00 Monday 29 July 2019
Cadogan Hall

Barbara Strozzi: L’amante segreto
Antonia Bembo: Ercole amante – ‘Mingannasti in verità’
Barbara Strozzi: Che si può fare
Antonia Bembo: Ercole amante – ‘Volgete altrove il guardo’
Barbara Strozzi: Sino alla morte
Francesco Cavalli: Ercole amante – ‘E vuol dunque Ciprigna’
Barbara Strozzi: Lagrime mie

Mariana Flores soprano
Cappella Mediterranea
Leonardo García Alarcón harpsichord/organ/director

Few composers paint human emotion as vividly or with greater insight, wit and poignancy than Barbara Strozzi whose songs and madrigals stand alongside Monteverdi’s as some of the greatest of the age.
Argentine soprano Mariana Flores and period-instrument ensemble Cappella Mediterranea celebrate Strozzi’s anniversary with a selection of love songs by the composer and her contemporaries, including the arresting ‘Lagrime mie’ and the touching ‘Che si puo fare’.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I do like this kind of concert programming - preferable to saturation of one composer.

[doversoul1]

Whilst the singer and the ensemble are not my first choice, I am very much looking forward to this. And if you missed it, try this.

10.20am – New Releases
‘Voglio Cantar’ – Baroque vocal music by Strozzi, Cavalli, Cesti, Marini & Merula
Emöke Baráth (soprano)
Il Pomo d’Oro
Francesco Corti (conductor)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00075dm

[doversoul1]

1.00pm today.

[bluestateprommer]

Very enjoyable PCM, well worth catching on iPlayer. It does spill over past the 1 hour time frame for those concerned with such matters.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Very enjoyable PCM, well worth catching on iPlayer. It does spill over past the 1 hour time frame for those concerned with such matters.

Yes - lovely concert, beautifully performed and sung. (I think that if you edit out the ratehr "empty" chat with the singer near the beginning, the timing gets closer to the 1 hour period.)

[doversoul1]

I thought the programme was slightly monotone but that’s a very small complaint. A very enjoyable concert.

[kernelbogey]

The repeat is at 1300, Sunday 4 August, just before EMS.

[Constantbee]

Very enjoyable PCM, well worth catching on iPlayer. It does spill over past the 1 hour time frame for those concerned with such matters.

Pleasantly impressed by the quality of the musicians I’m hearing from Argentina. It’s not a part of the world that immediately springs to mind for having an operatic tradition, but how little we know I enjoyed Guadalupe Barrientos’ performance at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World very much so I was looking forward to hearing Mariana Flores and was certainly not disappointed What I like about these singers I can only describe as their great stage presence. They are performers not just singers, who connect with the audience in a very old fashioned sort of way. I heard one British reviewer describe this as ‘histrionic’. Well, I don’t agree, and it’s a good thing we don’t all like the same things – isn’t it!

A couple of reviews I’ve read have criticised Flores opening, saying it took her a while to settle down, but I’m wondering how much of that might have been due to the appalling acoustics and difficulties of projecting and placing her voice in Cadogan Hall. Did anybody go?

Overall, a tasteful and delightful concert I shall enjoy listening to a couple more times at least. Oooh, and another recorder and theorbo combo …

[doversoul1]

Pleasantly impressed by the quality of the musicians I’m hearing from Argentina. It’s not a part of the world that immediately springs to mind for having an operatic tradition, but how little we know I enjoyed Guadalupe Barrientos’ performance at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World very much so I was looking forward to hearing Mariana Flores and was certainly not disappointed What I like about these singers I can only describe as their great stage presence. They are performers not just singers, who connect with the audience in a very old fashioned sort of way. I heard one British reviewer describe this as ‘histrionic’. Well, I don’t agree, and it’s a good thing we don’t all like the same things – isn’t it!

A couple of reviews I’ve read have criticised Flores opening, saying it took her a while to settle down, but I’m wondering how much of that might have been due to the appalling acoustics and difficulties of projecting and placing her voice in Cadogan Hall. Did anybody go?

Overall, a tasteful and delightful concert I shall enjoy listening to a couple more times at least. Oooh, and another recorder and theorbo combo …

Here's another example of 'operatic tradition' from Argentina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXmF6h3Yd_A.

Early music song proms at Cadogan Hall has been excellent for the (as long as I am aware/remember) last few years. Long may it continue.

[Constantbee]

Here's another example of 'operatic tradition' from Argentina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXmF6h3Yd_A.

This is an astonishingly good performance Thanks for the link, doversoul. Let's hope we get another good early music CH prom tomorrow lunchtime.