Agitata

Delphine Galou (alto) & Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone

Delphine Galou is renowned and admired for her musicality and her appealing timbre. She has taken part in many productions of Baroque music and recordings of operas (notably by Vivaldi), but this is her first recital. It is a programme of sacred music, motets, cantatas and excerpts from oratorios, which in the course of the 17th & 18th centuries were influenced by the increasingly fashionable genre of opera.

From the famous ‘Agitata infido flatu’ from Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha triumphans, Stradella’s Lamentations and Porpora’s magnificent motet ‘In procella sine stella’, Delphine Galou covers a wide range of spiritual emotions.

Delphine is accompanied by the excellent Accademia Bizantina under its director and harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone. A concerto by Gregori and a sinfonia by Caldara complete this release, which includes several world premiere recordings.

Brevi:
 O spiritus Angelici - Per il Santissimo Sacramento

Caldara:
 La Passione di Gesu Cristo
 Sinfonia No. 12 'La Passione di Gesu Signor nostro'

Gregori, G.:
 Concerto Grosso, Op. 2 No. 2

Jommelli:
 La betulia liberate
 Prigionier che fa ritorno (from Betulia liberata)

Porpora:
 In procella sine stella

Stradella:
 Et egressus est – Lamentazione per il Mercoledì Santo

Torelli:
 Lumi, dolenti lumi - Cantata a voce sola per il Venerdì Santo

Vivaldi:
 Agitata infido flatu (from Juditha Triumphans)
 Juditha Triumphans, RV644

"An often feisty recital of operatically-influenced 17th and 18th century sacred music intercut with instrumental items by Dantone’s firebrand ensemble."
BBC Music Magazine - Christmas 2017 ****

"This is a treasure trove of rare music…Galou is a perfect singer to introduce us to this music, thanks to an agile and comfortable technique (hear the way she sails effortlessly through her full compass in a single phrase in the first aria of the Porpora)…The playing Accademia Bizantina…is keen as mustard and filled with typically telling detail by director Ottavio Dantone. A lovely disc of discoveries."
Gramophone Magazine - January 2018