Sonia Prina (contralto)
Stefano Montanari (violin)
Accademia Bizantina
Ottavio Dantone, conductor
The latest release in the acclaimed “Vivaldi Edition” from Naïve concentrates on rare arias and unusual versions of others performed by leading contralto Sonia Prina.
These fragments of Vivaldian arcana make for an entirely satisfying programme, thanks to the high quality of the music - Servilia’s Tu dormi in tante pene, from the Mantuan carnival version of Tito Manlio, is the highlight - and to Prina’s fabulous singing. Her training as a trumpeter gives her singing a muscularity and endless reserves of breath. A thrilling disc.” Sunday Times, 4th May 2008 ****
“All of the music is expertly crafted, and some of it is extraordinary… Sonia Prina has a firm grasp on melodic lines and supple timbre. She reaffirms her status as an outstanding Baroque opera singer…” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008
The Vivaldi Edition, a recording venture conceived by the Italian musicologist Alberto Basso and the independent label Naïve, is one of the most ambitious recording projects of the twenty-first century.
Its principal objective is to record the massive collection of Vivaldi autograph manuscripts preserved today in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, some 450 works. Incredibly, this is the private library of scores Vivaldi had at home at the time of his death in Vienna in 1741 and includes his extant operas, hundreds of concertos, sacred compositions and cantatas. Much of this music has not been heard since the 18th century.
The release of more than 100 CDs, which began in 2000, will extend over the next ten years. The Vivaldi Edition's goal is to make this extraordinary wealth of music available to the public and at the same time to reveal the full genius of Vivaldi, not only as a composer of instrumental music, for which he was already known, but as the creator of some of the 18th-century's most exhilarating vocal music.
