Rinaldo Alessandrini
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Conductor and harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini is an innovative interpreter of Italian Baroque opera and instrumental music. As the director of his own ensemble, Concerto Italiano, he has brought dramatic, opera-influenced readings to a variety of Baroque works from Italy and beyond.
Alessandrini was born in Rome on January 25, 1960. He was relatively late in beginning his musical studies, taking up the piano at age 14. Four years later, he discovered the harpsichord and traveled to the Netherlands for lessons with Ton Koopman at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. He was soon giving concerts on the harpsichord. Alessandrini founded Concerto Italiano in 1984. He also played the organ, and his first recording, a performance of Girolamo Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali collection, was on that instrument. That recording was on the Naïve label, which would be Alessandrini's home for much of his recording career. In 1992, he issued a collection of Alessandro Scarlatti's keyboard music on the Arcana label; he has also recorded for Opus 111, which released Alessandrini's early recordings of Monteverdi madrigals with Concerto Italiano.
As an opera conductor, Alessandrini has led performances of Monteverdi operas as well as those of lesser-known composers, such as Francesco Cavalli and Leonardo Vinci. His involvement with a major series of recently rediscovered Vivaldi works issued on Naïve brought him to international attention and resulted in Europe-wide tours and festival appearances for Concerto Italiano. Other acclaimed Alessandrini recordings included those of Handel's Italian-language operas and harpsichord concertos by J.S. Bach, stressing their direct Italian antecedents. The group's recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos have been both critical and commercial successes. Alessandrini returned to Monteverdi's operas in the 2010s, conducting L'incoronazione di Poppea at the La Scala opera house in Milan. He has recorded prolifically, issuing as many as four albums a year in the 2010s; the 2018 set included Un viaggio a Roma.
Alessandrini is a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, by the designation of the French government. ~ James Manheim Similar artists
Albums
61
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Secular Vocal Music - Released April 7, 2017 | naïve classique
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2017 marks the 450th anniversary of Claudio Monteverdi, one of the fathers of modern music, who gave a major impulse to expressivity and individuality of expression. Rinaldo Alessandrini’s benchmark recordings of the madrigals, the Vespers, L'Orfeo etc., contributed to unani-mously establish the Roman conductor and his ensemble Concerto Italiano as the leading ambassadors of Monteverdi today. "Notte. Storie di Amanti e di Guerrieri" offers a selection of highlights from Monteverdi’s most famous madrigals and instrumental movements: Lamento della ninfa, Combat-timento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Ho’r che’l ciel e la terra, sinfonias from Monteverdi’s three operas etc. A heart-stretching pro-gram in which Rinaldo Alessandrini’s sci-ence of light, emotions and colors is at its highest.
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Full Operas - Released August 21, 2007 | naïve Opus 111
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The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Sacred Vocal Music - Released May 26, 2014 | naïve classique
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Classical - Released December 2, 2013 | naïve classique
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Secular Vocal Music - Released January 27, 2017 | Arcana
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10 de Répertoire
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Chamber Music - Released April 13, 2018 | naïve classique
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Gramophone Editor's Choice
A player of the harpsichord, organ and pianoforte; a choirmaster and conductor; Rinaldo Alessandrini is a teacher too, who loves to use his records and concerts to draw his audience into thrilling themes. This Roman is well-placed to know just how much history – and musical history is no exception here – is made up of strata which build up over each other, creating a jumble which can be anarchic, but which always drives invention. After an album that retells the story of 150 Years of Italian Music (Naïve 1994), and then another dedicated to the beginnings of Italian baroque in 1600 (Naïve 2012), we were treated to an enchanting black pearl, as incongruous as it was strange: Monteverdi - Night. Stories of lovers and Warriors (Naïve 2017) offers a collection of works that celebrate the night. Here is a recording dedicated to the flourishing of instrumental music in the later baroque period around 1700. The new composers who appear in this new work, Locatelli, Mascitti, Vivaldi, Caldara, Durante, Galuppi, Pugnani, were all very famous in their own times, and all went off to bring the good news about this new musical style to the four corners of Europe; they built up a kind of international musical language which would entrance the courts, and music-lovers in their first public concerts. The record bears that joyful playing style characteristic of Rinaldo Alessandrini and his Concerto Italiano, and a virtuosity which is as much a pleasure to behold as the rococo architecture and painting of that flamboyant epoch. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Full Operas - Released October 1, 2002 | naïve
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Secular Vocal Music - Released March 24, 2014 | naïve classique
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Cannes Classical Music Award
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Symphonic Music - Released May 18, 2009 | naïve classique
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Exceptional Sound Recording
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Classical - Released February 3, 2014 | naïve classique
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What was the first opera? The question is difficult to answer, for the form emerged out of the combination of the intermedi, a short dramatic form presented at royal weddings and the like, with a group of experiments in re-creating the declamation of ancient Greek drama. These coalesced into larger-scale pieces around 1600. One of them, L'Euridice, shared its story with the first acknowledged operatic masterpiece, Monteverdi's Orfeo, and was performed at the wedding of Maria de' Medici and Henri IV of France. The earlier operas have mostly been the province of scholars who have tried to reassemble L'Euridice from the contributions of various composers. The version here, drawn from one published by one of the composers, Giulio Caccini, makes a reasonably good case for the work, maintaining its dramatic coherence and working in a good deal of effective melodic material among the recitatives. But most effective of all in bringing the work to life is the presence of top-notch Baroque vocalists: Silvia Frigato in the title role and the inimitable Sara Mingardo as Dafne. How this music was accompanied remains under debate -- it was notated only on a pair of staves -- but conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini and his Concerto Italiano keep things sparse. Given the luxurious surroundings in which the music was first performed, one could certainly imagine a larger group, but Alessandrini keeps the focus on the singers, and wonderful singers they are. L'Euridice remains of most interest to lovers of the early Baroque, but it certainly receives its first real high-powered performance here.
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Sacred Vocal Music - Released August 30, 2010 | naïve classique
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Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released September 21, 2018 | naïve classique
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5 de Diapason
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Classical - Released January 23, 2012 | naïve classique
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Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released August 27, 2012 | Opus 111 naïve
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Secular Vocal Music - Released June 1, 2009 | naïve classique
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Secular Vocal Music - Released July 5, 2010 | naïve classique
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Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released May 9, 2011 | naïve classique
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4 étoiles Classica
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Classical - Released June 11, 2019 | naïve classique
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Classical - Released September 29, 2017 | naïve classique
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Full Operas - Released March 22, 2010 | naïve
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