Feo / Vinci / Scarlatti / Costanzi / Bononcini - Arias for Domenico Gizzi-A Star Castrato in - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Carcas / Neumann / Toovy / Talgam - Transformations [COMPACT DISCS] Jewel Case Packaging date 01/08/2016

?Like all castrati, Gaetano Berenstadt's hormones had gone crazy, but Berenstadt's were particularly strong with a height of about 185 cm, he is said to have had 130 cm long legs, arms that were far too short and a corpulent belly. A field day for the caricaturists. But when he stood on the opera stage and sang, he was idolised. Berenstadt, born in Florence in 1687 and lifelong loyal to his patrons, the Medici, at the same time Grand Dukes of Tuscany, experienced his artistic career in the first third of the 18th century. He sang at all the important opera houses in Italy and for some years in London. The most famous composers of his time such as Ariosti, Bononcini, Gasparini, Hasse, Sarro and Vinci appreciated him for his vocal and acting abilities. Handel in particular was a great admirer of Berenstadt; in addition to several roles in world premieres, he even wrote new arias for him for the London revival of InchRinaldoInch in 1717. Filippo Mineccia, also from Florence and one of the leading countertenors of our day, follows in the musical footsteps of his Florentine predecessor and draws an impressive portrait of Berenstadt's career on this recording.

The transcripts of Sergey Rachmaninoff enjoyed great respect among pianists during the composer's lifetime. In addition to piano concertos, preludes, etudes and Variations on a Theme of Correlli, Rachmaninoff's arrangements were gradually becoming the composer's showcase. On the one hand, each work of this kind enables the display of purely virtuoso skills, while on the other, due to the often dense texture, it prompts us to seek a way of presenting harmonic and polyphonic consonances. This album by Ivan Shemchuk includes a collection of these piano arrangements, enriched with the popular cycle of 6 Morceaux for 4 hands, op. 11.