Stile Galante start opnames ‘Luigi Marchesi’ op Kolthoorn / Heerde 6-13 april 2021

Het Stile Galante team is neergestreken in ons museum in Heerde voor een omvangrijk project rond componist Luigi Marchesi (1754 – 1829), en gevierd castrato soprano, de ‘Freddy Mercury’ van zijn tijd. Het project omvat de CD opname van alle Marchesi Ariette, aangevuld met twee vrouwelijke componistes en tijdgenoten: Anne-Marie Krumpholz en Veronika Cianchettini; alledrie werkzaam in Londen aan het eind van de 18de eeuw.

Stile Galante

Five years ago, Stile Galante dedicated an extensive project to the celebrated soprano castrato Luigi Marchesi (1754-1829). The project included some academic conferences, masterclasses, a CD recording with the renowned Swedish mezzosoprano Ann Hallenberg, and the first scientific monograph on the singer. We are now going back to this extraordinary European musician and analyse his work as a composer, together with the works of female composers working with him, most of them renewed fortepiano or harp virtuosos developing their careers in London in the 90s of the 18^th century.

From this work we developed the idea of a recording and a series of concerts to present his vocal music and brilliant instrumental pieces created by female composers like Anne-Marie Krumpholz, née Steckler (1766-1824) and Veronika Rosalia Cianchettini, née Dusikova (1769–1833).  For this kind of recording we absolutely want to use original instruments: having in our hands two marvelous original harps we need to complete the soundscape panorama of this recording with original fortepianos (at least one square, and one “grand” piano). Please, note that Marchesi music was published by Longman and Broderip, and it fits peculiarly the possibilities of table pianos.

Luigi Marchesi (1754-1829)

During his career as a virtuoso singer, Marchesi was able to show himself as good composer of chamber vocal music: Marchesi published two different collections of ariettas with fortepiano and harp accompaniment and wrote some other pieces, but only and exclusively during his working periods in London. The repertoire was recently studied by musicologist Marilena Laterza, Federico Zavanelli, and Stefano Aresi.
The success of some of these scores exceeded Marchesi’s own expectations. The Ariette op. 1 & 2 are sweet musical cameos dominated by remarkable elegance. They perfectly embody the taste of the time and represent Marchesi’s wish to use his popularity as an opera singer to push in front of the audience a more all-round and cosmopolitan image of himself as an artist suitable both for the stage and a sophisticated cultural lounge life.

Anne-Marie Krumpholtz & Veronika Rosalia Cianchettini

These small pieces of music immediately reached success, being re-published (also in pirate editions) in London and all over Europe, becoming extremely popular till the 30s of the following century. Marchesi himself sung some of them after his opera performances, in front of the closed curtains, accompanied by virtuoso Anne-Marie Krumpholtz.Our wish is to record the complete Ariette by Marchesi and some of the few chamber music composed by Anne-Marie Krumpholtz herself, giving new life to these delightful and brilliant pages of music, trying to recreate the taste and soundscape of the London opera-goers private houses at the end of the 18 th century. To complete this musical painting, we added to the CD track list pages written by the cello virtuoso James Cervetto, who was performing with Marchesi in London concert halls, some anonymous variations on folk themes and an extremely brilliant fortepiano sonata by Veronika Rosalia Dussek Cianchettini (in this sonata we can see one of the first written arrangements of the popular melody Adeste fideles, presented as “The Portuguese tune”)

The Marchesi Team

Soprano Francesca Cassinari is going to perform this music with Chiara Granata (harp), Andrea Friggi (fortepiano), Agnieszka Oszanca (cello) and Giulia Gillio (cello), under the supervision of our director Stefano Aresi. The team benefits from the collaboration with 3 musicologists and 2 consultants: Marilena Laterza (University of Milan), Valentina Anzani (University of Bologna), Livio Marcaletti (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna), Luca Benedetti (Cremona), Valentina Di Taranto (Amsterdam).

Pan Classics

The project is going to be released by the prestigious Pan Classics label, and is supported by a private sponsor and a crowdfunding.