Leonardo García Alarcón's 2011 recording of Michelangelo Falvetti's 1682 oratorio Il Diluvio Universale is a reminder, if one were needed, that there are untold treasures of Baroque repertoire waiting to be discovered. The story of The Flood is told economically, but with enough peculiar diversions from the Biblical story to keep listeners on their toes about what's going to happen next. There are personifications of Divine Justice, Human Nature, Water, Fire, Land, and Death (a smugly self-satisfied character who sings a triumphant, gleeful little gigue once humanity has been wiped out). This is the first recording of any work by Falvetti and it's a knock-out. Having performers like Leonardo García Alarcón, Cappella Mediterranea, and Choeur de Chambre de Namur in your corner perhaps gives any composer a hand up, but the exceptional quality of the score itself is also easy to discern. The work defies the conventions of its times and often astonishes with its originality and the richness of its inventiveness. Its many delightful quirks begin when Divine Justice, bringing charges against Mankind for its many failings, peremptorily breaks into the overture, bringing it to a grinding, premature halt. For all its strangeness, it's remarkably astute dramatically, and is typical of Falvetti's gift for odd but wonderfully apt musical gestures. Another moment: when the shrieking multitudes are being swept away by the deluge, they are engulfed mid-word, leaving silence except for the rushing of the wind. The score is also full of moments of breathtaking loveliness. Noah's duets with his wife, "Il Gran Dio di pieta," "Motor Divino," and "Placati Dio di bontà," sung radiantly by tenor Fernando Guimarães and soprano Mariana Flores, are as achingly poignant and sumptuous as anything out of Cavalli, perhaps even Monteverdi. Alarcón and his orchestral, choral, and vocal forces deliver virtuoso performances that quiver with musical vibrancy and dramatic conviction. The soloists are consistently superb; besides Guimarães and Flores, contralto Evelyn Ramirez Munoz and sopranos Magali Arnault and Caroline Weynants are standouts. Arnault delivers what can only be described as a jaw-dropping coloratura performance as Water in "Le nubi funeste," and then the choir joins in singing similar material with similar facility; it's simply astonishing. Complementing the standard instrumental ensemble, Iranian percussionist Keyvan Chemirani uses Arabic folk instruments that would have been familiar in countries around the Mediterranean basin to provide color and rhythmic energy. The sound of the Ambronay CD is clean, detailed, and warmly present. Il Diluvio Universale is a quirky piece and is not likely to supplant Messiah in popularity, but it deserves the attention of anyone who loves the byways of the Baroque and ought to leave scholars scurrying in search of other Falvetti scores. Highly recommended.© TiVo

The curiously named Rare Fruits Council is a small group led by Argentine-German violinist Manfredo Kraemer. It has a good sound for the small-ensemble instrumental music of the late 17th century; Kraemer's violin in particular has an uncannily vocal sound at times. The program offers music by three composers who were active in Venice around 1670: the German Johann Rosenmüller, who fled to Italy after being charged with child sexual abuse, and native Italians Giovanni Legrenzi and Alessandro Stradella. For the casual listener, 13 of these sonatas in a row may be a lot; all are written for a group of from two to five stringed instruments, and all consist of a single, long movement made up of short sections in different tempos and textures. If you have been snared by the music of the 17th century you're likely to get a lot out of the program, which will attune your ear a bit to how a Venetian audience of the day might have heard the music and the differences among the three composers. Legrenzi and Rosenmüller were roughly contemporary (Legrenzi was a bit older), but Rosenmüller's sonatas have a certain German formality, with symmetrical shapes and a comparatively greater use of counterpoint. Stradella, roughly 20 years younger than Rosenmüller, is the one who points the way toward the high Baroque and the bifurcation into solo sonata and concerto that was soon to come; his sonatas fall into cleaner sections and have a more virtuosic treatment of the individual contributions. Recommended for Baroque enthusiasts.© TiVo

The title of the two-disc album, Vivaldi: Vespro a San Marco, implies that the composer wrote a set of pieces comparable to Monteverdi's Vespro della beata Vergine, but the title needs to be interpreted somewhat loosely. The program notes describe the collection of psalms, canticles, motets, and prefatory chants recorded here as an evocation of a service of vespers Vivaldi might have assembled rather than a reconstruction of one he actually ever did. These vespers are distinctly Vivaldian in idiom, but they resemble Monteverdi's in the use of some common texts and in the diversity of musical styles, genres, and performing forces assembled; there is not much of a sense of unity in the traditional sense, but a profusion of delightfully varied musical vignettes, including a cappella chants, solos, ensembles, choruses, and instrumental pieces. The bugaboo of run-of-the-mill Vivaldi performances is most frequently a squared-off regularity that makes the music come across as undifferentiated and blocky. The superlative performances by Leonardo García Alarcón leading Choeur de Chambre de Namur and the chamber orchestra Les Agrémens (also based in Namur) are anything but run-of-the-mill. Alarcón consistently finds the musical individuality of Vivaldi's lines and invests them with unambiguous emotional meaning. He creates elegantly shapely contours even in the most rhythmically severe movements like the fugal counterpoint of "Donec ponam" from the Dixit Dominus, and consistently heightens the music's expressive lyricism. The soloists are also terrific, singing both with distinctiveness in their solos and with a gorgeous blend in the many ensembles. Sopranos Maria Soledad and Mariana Flores and bass Alejandro Meerapfel stand out for their especially sumptuous timbres and the musicality of their interpretations. All the singers and players sound like they are having a wonderful time performing this music and their enthusiasm is infectious. The sound of the live performances is clear, warmly present, and mostly clean except for some page turning and shuffling.© TiVo