Handel / Tchaikowskaja / Margulis - Classical Music Stars in Malta - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Following the of his debut album in May 2007 the virtuoso horn player Etienne Cutajar, who took up his first orchestral seat at 18, has seen his career develop with important orchestral appointments in Scotland and elsewhere before returning to his native country to become principal horn of the Malta Philharmonic. He has also appeared as chamber soloist in many prestigious venues. This album is named for the central work, Mdina, by Maltese composer Jesmond Grixti; this is a work for horn solo and accompanied by two more contemporary pieces Air für Horn by Jörg Widmann and Cynddaredd-Brenddyd by Heinz Holliger. These works require the highest accuracy and technical ability which Cutajar supplies with aplomb. Accompanying these new pieces are three mainstream works Beethoven's well known Sonata receives a superb performance, as do the Andante by Richard Strauss and Brahms's Horn Trio in E flat. In these works, Cutajar is joined by esteemed pianist and Royal Academy professor John Reid, and in the Brahms Trio by Carmine Lauri, one of the UK's principal orchestral violinists, who has led the London Symphony, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and Royal Opera House among others, and has been featured violinist in a host of major feature films.

Mezzo-soprano Blandine Staskiewicz Tempesta has, for her first recital disc, chosen to venture into the emotional storms and calms beloved of Baroque composers - notably Vivaldi and Handel - intensely charged arias that captivates listeners still. Ms. Staskiewicz (who has appeared on previous Glossa albums in the company of Herve Niquet and Fabio Bonizzoni) herself contributes an intriguing note about this program's genesis- complete with alluring cover design - but it is the singer's superlative control and expertise in Baroque repertoire that Tempesta best highlights.

Handel's cantatas represent an important musical repertoire that until recently has been little known. Consisting of about 100 separate works, most were written over a period of a few years for private performance in Italy. They range from musical miniatures containing only two arias connected by recitative and accompanied by continuo (a bass line typically realized by cello and harpsichord) to larger works with named characters, a dramatic story, and rich instrumental forces. Telling more often than not about the pangs of love, these are intimate works, with texts frequently written by (and sometimes about) members of the privileged audience for which they were composed. A number of Handel's cantatas have texts by one of his important Italian patrons, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj. The project of Marco Vitale to record all of Handel's cantatas is thrilling. The continuo cantatas have never been recorded in full and many have never been recorded at all. Thus, this project will bring to life largely unknown music by one of the world's greatest composers.