Stefano Landi | Homo fugit velut umbra...

Johannette Zomer soprano · Stephan Van Dyck ténor · Alain Buet basse · Marco Beasley ténor · L'Arpeggiata · Christina Pluhar

So who was Stefano Landi? to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians he is 'One of the most important figures in the early history of opera and a leading Roman composer of his day'. But this recording focuses on another, less public side of Landi's art, the more personal books of arias (Libri di Arie). It looks into Landi's 'double life, the reverse side of life at court and its struggle for recognition...so we can discover in Stefano Landi's Libri di Arie pieces that on closer inspection lead the way into a universe all his own. These arias and villanellas, composed by a singer and continuo player, a rhetorician and philosopher, who accompanied his own songs on the harp or the Spanish guitar, constitute a miniature art form of concentrated perfection'.

Congratulations to Christina Pluhar, her singers and L'Arpeggiata, for illuminating the life of a little-known Italian master in such a beautifully rewarding way. --BBC M.M.

MP3 HQ · 89 MB