CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Performance
Wednesday, March 6, 2013 | 7:30 PM
Ensemble Matheus
Zankel Hall
Seating
Chart
Together with its powerful leader, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Ensemble Matheus performs the Baroque repertoire it specializes in with white-hot energy. The ensemble is, as Stephen Brookes of The Washington Post put it, “aggressive, vibrant, and focused to an absolutely electrifying pitch.”
Performers
- Ensemble Matheus
Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Director and Violin
- Veronica Cangemi, Soprano
- Laurence Paugam, Violin
- Claire-Lise Démettre, Cello
- Jérôme Pernoo, Cello
Program
- HANDEL "Frondi tenere" from Xerses
- HANDEL "Ombra mai fù" from Xerses
- VIVALDI "Zeffiretti che sussurate" from Ercole su’l Termodonte
- VIVALDI "Gelosia" from Ottone in Villa
- VIVALDI "Se mai senti" from Catone in Utica
- VIVALDI "Siam navi all'onde algenti" from L’Olimpiade
- HANDEL Overture to Xerses
- VIVALDI Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos, Strings, and Continuo, RV 531
- VIVALDI Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, Cello, Strings, and Continuo from L'estro armonico, Op. 3, No. 11
- PORPORA Concerto in G Major for Cello
Audio
Vivaldi's Concerto for Strings & Continuo in A Major, RV 159, Allegro
Ensemble Matheus
Naive
At a Glance
This evening's concert features music by three composers who
were rivals at the opera houses of the early-18th century: George
Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, and Nicolo Antonio Porpora. If
Porpora's name is not as famous today—except among vocal
students—as the other two, the performance of his remarkable
Concerto for Cello may help to ameliorate this. Here, he
brilliantly transferred his gift for showing off a highly trained
voice to the cello, making it a virtuoso singer as well.
We also hear examples of both the vocal and the instrumental music of
Handel and Vivaldi. The latter's greatness as an operatic composer
remained unknown outside specialist circles until very recently
when the revival of Baroque opera, ably aided by Cecilia Bartoli,
moved beyond Handel to unearth jewels from Vivaldi's more than 20
surviving stage scores. His vocal music is as vivacious and varied
as his well-known concertos.