New recording.
2009 is the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death. This Brilliant Classics recording of his first oratorio is an important addition to this Handel Anniversary Year.
Contrasto Armonico are to record all Handel’s Italian cantatas for Brilliant Classics, and the recent release of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo received critical acclaim.
Booklet notes with full sung texts and translations
With this recording, Contrasto Armonico continues its recording project of Handel’s Italian vocal works. The first release in the series, of the serenata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, was enthusiastically welcomed. ‘Everything is shaped intelligently and tellingly’, wrote the American Record Guide; Fonoforum called it a ‘lustvoll’ recording and noted the ‘very elegant, fluid and resonant style’ of Contrasto Armonico’s playing. This second release in the series offers a new and passionate interpretation of the great Roman oratorio La Resurrezzione.
This is the first recording of the work to be made at the low Roman pitch of the time, with transposed winds; Contrasto Armonico is the first orchestra in modern times to explore this field and to apply it to a well-known work by Handel. Marco Vitale says: ‘I hope the result will show a hitherto unseen face to this significant and remarkable oratorio, allowing us to appreciate the kind of instrumental sonorities and balances one can only hear when the appropriate pitch and instruments for this music are used.’ In this Handel anniversary year of 2009 Contrasto Armonico and Brilliant Classics will continue their relationship with the release of the first volume of the complete Italian cantatas by Handel, which will focus on Roman cantatas, both with instrumental accompaniment as well as basso continuo, and therefore recorded, like La Resurrezione, at A = 392Hz.

“Contrasto Armonico take a novel approach and it pays off handsomely. The pacing of the work is often a bit slower than one might expect, and such a patiently poetic character bespeaks Vitale's radically different approach to the bold dynamism that others prefer in this repertoire.” Gramophone