Donizetti Songs Vol.1 Lawrence Brownlee

£10.00

1 disc set
Single Track Download

The prolific and versatile Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, one of the central figures of Italian bel canto opera, also wrote around 200 songs. Volume 1 features songs for tenor performed by Lawrence Brownlee and pianist and Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi. Most of these songs are rarely performed and some, until recently, completely unknown. Curated by musicologist Roger Parker and under the leadership of Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi, Opera Rara presents the complete solo songs in a series of eight recital albums.

The project makes a powerful case for Donizetti as a key figure in 19th-century song repertoire, and for the importance of the Italian school in a field long dominated by German and French composers.

  1. L’amante spagnuolo 'Corri destrier, deh celere' ** OUT 6 SEPT 2024 ** Buy Track 0:32
  2. ‘Con le grazie, con le muse’ Buy Track 0:32
  3. Il donativo ‘Tu porgesti a me l’anello' Buy Track 0:32
  4. 'Non v’e piu barbaro' Buy Track 0:32
  5. 'Perche mai Nigella amata' Buy Track 0:32
  6. 'Rendimi il core o barbara' Buy Track 0:32
  7. Il sogno 'Nostre misere menti' Buy Track 0:32
  8. Amor marinaro ‘Me voglio fa' Buy Track 0:32
  9. ‘Malvina la bella sull’arpa’ Buy Track 0:32
  10. Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo ‘Com’e possivol mai Sandra crudele’ Buy Track 0:32
  11. 'Trova un sol mia bella Clori' (version in F Major) Buy Track 0:32
  12. ‘Trova un sol mia bella Clori' (version in A Major) Buy Track 0:32
  13. ‘Ella riposa... alcuni istanti almeno’ Buy Track 0:32
  14. ‘Sovra il remo sta curvato’ Buy Track 0:32
  15. ‘Or che la notte invita’ (with Jernej Albreht, Clarinet) Jernej Albreht - Clarinet Buy Track 0:32
  16. ‘Se lontan, ben mio, tu sei’ Buy Track 0:32
  17. 'O anime affannate' ** OUT 20 SEPT 2024 ** Buy Track 0:32
  18. ‘Quando verra sul colle’ Buy Track 0:32
  19. Quando verra quel di ‘Quando verra sul colle’ Buy Track 0:32
  20. ‘Odi, Elisa: questa e l’ora' Buy Track 0:32
  21. Il sospiro ‘Donna infelice, stanca d’amore’ Buy Track 0:32
  22. ‘Alfin di Gerosolima’ Buy Track 0:32
  23. 'Lunge ne vai da Italia' Buy Track 0:32
  24. ‘Bedda Eurilla' Buy Track 0:32
  25. ‘Voi vorreste il nome amato’ Buy Track 0:32
  26. ‘V’era un di che il cor beato' Buy Track 0:32
  27. 'Il sorriso e il primo vezzo' Buy Track 0:32
  28. 'Non giova il sospirar' Buy Track 0:32

Description

One of Opera Rara’s most ambitious projects in its fifty-year history is to record the complete solo songs of Gaetano Donizetti.

A handful of these songs has been long known and often heard in recitals; many more are listed in specialist catalogues but very rarely if ever performed; others still have been thought lost or are completely unknown. Recent research connected with this project, undertaken by Roger Parker in collaboration with Ian Schofield, has made clear that, in total, Donizetti wrote some 200 solo songs over the course of his thirty-year career. Making modern editions of this vast corpus has been an arduous task: sources for the songs are dispersed in European libraries and beyond, the composer’s autograph scores often having been casually given away at the time of composition (typically as a present from the composer to the dedicatee). But in their totality these compositions make a powerful case for Donizetti as a key figure in nineteenth-century domestic music-making: someone whose achievements in this area deserve to be better known; a body of work that, single-handedly, makes a powerful argument for the importance of the Italian “school” in a field long dominated by German and French composers.

Cast

Lawrence Brownlee, tenor
Carlo Rizzi, piano
Jernej Albreht, clarinet (track 15)

Tracklist

[1] Bolero, L’amante spagnuolo ‘Corri destrier, deh celere’ (1’52)

[2] ‘Con le grazie, con le muse’ (1’51)

[3] Il donativo ‘Tu porgesti a me l’anello’ (1’41)

[4] ‘Non v’e più barbaro’ (2’38)

[5] ‘Perché mai Nigella amata’ (2’00)

[6] Canzonetta ‘Rendimi il core o barbara’ (2’17)

[7] Il sogno ‘Nostre misere menti’ (2’36)

[8] Canzone napolitana Amor marinaro ‘Me voglio fa ’na casa’ (2’06)

[9] Romanza ‘Malvina la bella sull’arpa’ (1’33)

[10] Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo ‘Com’e possivol mai Sandra crudele’ (1’52)

[11] ‘Trova un sol mia bella Clori’ (version in F Major) (3’28)

[12] ‘Trova un sol mia bella Clori’ (version in A Major) (2’45)

[13] Cavatina ‘Ella riposa… alcuni istanti almeno’ (5’36)

[14] Barcaruola ‘Sovra il remo sta curvato’ (1’52)

[15] Canzonetta ‘Or che la notte invita’ (with Jernej Albreht, clarinet) (3’36)

[16] Canzonetta ‘Se lontan, ben mio, tu sei’ (1’03)

[17] ‘O anime affannate’ (3’30)

[18] Canzonetta ‘Quando verra sul colle’ (2’28)

[19] Romanza, Quando verra quel di ‘Quando verra sul colle’ (3’55)

[20] L’ora del ritrovo ‘Odi, Elisa: questa e l’ora’ (3’11)

[21] Il sospiro ‘Donna infelice, stanca d’amore’ (3’44)

[22] Il ritorno del trovatore da Gerusalemme ‘Alfin di Gerosolima’ (4’17)

[23] ‘Lunge ne vai da Italia’ (1’39)

[24] Canzonetta, Bedda Eurilla ‘Bedda Eurilla gia la scena’ (1’47)

[25] Il nome indovinato ‘Voi vorreste il nome amato’ (1’49)

[26] ‘V’era un di che il cor beato’ (2’56)

[27] ‘Il sorriso e il primo vezzo’ (1’47)

[28] ‘Non giova il sospirar’ (1’03)

 

 

Press Reviews

The opening track of Volume 1 is a charmer, and Brownlee nails it, his flexibility demonstrating why he’s a go-to for Rossini heroes… Carlo Rizzi, Opera Rara’s Artistic Director, is the ideal accompanist, playing with imagination while always letting the voice take centre stage… Whatever the mood, Brownlee’s is a voice to sit back and enjoy…

Limelight Editor's Choice

The first two albums are now available, from tenor Lawrence Brownlee and baritone Nicola Alaimo, both sympathetically accompanied at the piano by Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi… Brownlee, an ideal ‘Donizetti tenor’, brings immense warmth of tone and charm to his performance, and is ardent and affecting where the material demands… Neither of these albums sounds quite like Donizetti as we are used to hearing him, and to understand the complexity of the man you will want to hear both.

BBC Music Magazine

It is notable that Lawrence Brownlee, nurtured on Rossini’s music, kicks things off with an album recorded in the studio in September 2023. The American tenor, at nearly 52 and still in excellent vocal form, embodies the ideal bridge from late bel canto to Donizetti’s neo-belcantist romanticism, which both cultivates and departs from that legacy. Armed with a precise technique, Brownlee successfully meets the challenge.

Opéra magazine

Combined with his unshakable vocal accuracy and diction, Brownlee’s performances are indeed satisfying… Alaimo is a highly engaged storyteller… when it’s all finished, I imagine some potentially great anthologies being drawn from the eight volumes.

Gramophone

This is an essential edition. The collection allows us to follow the evolution of the composer, from his youthful works set to Italian texts of brief length, to those of his more mature phase, in French and even German, where the structure shows greater complexity… The interpretation of the tenor pieces is performed by Lawrence Brownlee, who displays his beautiful and brilliant light-lyric tone, with carefully crafted phrasing and impeccable musicality.

Scherzo

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