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Reviewer:
Tim Ashley Max Emanuel Cencic, Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce DiDonato are among the many singers to have recorded arias by Geminiano Giacomelli (1692-1740) of late, though Flavio Ferri-Benedetti’s ‘Fiamma vorace’ is, to my knowledge, the first recital to be devoted entirely to his music. Considerable care, one suspects, has gone into it. Ferri-Benedetti has edited some of the material himself and supplies scholarly yet engaging booklet notes that point out both Giacomelli’s popularity in his lifetime and the esteem in which he was held by contemporaries such as Vivaldi and Handel. The arias, some recorded for the first time, reveal an attractive melodist with a striking ability to match sound with sense and an impressive deployment of virtuosity for expressive means as well as display. It’s something of a shame, therefore, that the disc itself is uneven. Ferri-Benedetti possesses an agile alto and an appealing, sweet-sounding mezza voce, though you can’t quite escape the sense that the vocal range of some of this music lies too wide. His tone can harden at the top and become thin lower down. The title-track brings with it some curious plunges into a baritonal chest voice, though his coloratura is effective here with its pinprick staccatos. Slower arias, keeping him away from vocal extremes, suit him best. ‘Mancare, oh Dio, mi sento’ from Adriano in Siria is a graceful siciliana, finely negotiated and elegantly phrased. Place his performance of ‘Sposa, non mi conosci?’ from Merope, Giacomelli’s best-known aria, beside Cencic’s version on his ‘Venezia’ album (Erato, 4/13), however, and you cannot help but notice Cencic’s greater evenness of tone and sense of line. Directed by Daniela Dolci, Musica Fiorita sound good throughout, the strings warm and buoyant, the brass exceptionally fine in the sinfonias that punctuate the groups of arias. |
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