Mission – Agostino Steffani: Arias / Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Diego Fasolis

This is one of Bartoli’s best CDs. Agostino Steffani was a musician, abbot, priest, diplomat, and even a spy. He was also a castrato, according to Bartoli. As a young man, he moved to Munich, Germany, where he worked as an organist in the Bavarian court orchestra and began composing operas. Later he moved to Hanover, where he composed many operas. Although he is a minor composer in the history of music, he is actually a familiar composer to me. It just so happened that I came across his music when I was a young man. It was a soprano and alto duet accompanied by flute and violin in a thin sheet music. I no longer have the sheet music, but I still remember the melody of the beginning of the song, and it was Stefani’s music.

This CD contains 25 arias from Stefani’s operas, 21 of which are the first recordings. This is because they were “excavated” by Bartoli herself. Bartoli, who says, “I am the Indiana Jones of the classical music world” has now made immeasurable achievements in the field of musical archaeology. She is accompanied by Diego Fasolis, a Swiss-born organist and conductor of the Ensemble I Baroquisti. The CD features a variety of instrumental combinations, including trumpet and oboe etc., and four arias are duets performed by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and Bartoli. And the CD jacket…what is it all about? A skinhead Bartoli, wearing a clergy cloak with a stuffed collar and raising a rosary over her head. This is a pun on the title of the CD, “Mission,” and may represent Steffani’s worked as a Catholic bishop in Protestant northern Germany. Note that a DVD seems to have been sold at the same time as this CD, but I have not seen it yet (If I have a chance, I would like to see it). #baroque #bartoli #片山俊幸