Giulio Cesare: A Baroque Hero

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Pe’s voice is strong and clear-toned. He shows agility in the long runs…and his decorations of the vocal line are bravely inventive. He projects the tender aspects of Caesar’s character well,... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2019, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 19th Oct 2018
Catalogue No: GCD923516
Label: Glossa
Length: 70 minutes

The Times Records of the Year

2018

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Excerpt, Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Work length6:34

$1.00

$1.30

Raffaele Pe (countertenor)
La Lira di Orfeo

Va tacito e nascosto

Track length6:34

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$1.30

Excerpt, Bianchi, G F: La morte di Cesare

Work length5:27

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$1.30

Raffaele Pe (countertenor)
La Lira di Orfeo

Saprò d'ogn'alma audace

Track length5:27

$1.00

$1.30

Excerpt, Giacomelli: Cesare in Egitto

Work length6:01

$1.00

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Raffaele Pe (countertenor)
La Lira di Orfeo

Il cor che sdegnato

Track length6:01

$1.00

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Excerpt, Piccinni: Cesare in Egitto

Work length4:03

$1.00

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Raffaele Pe (countertenor)
La Lira di Orfeo

Spargi omai di dolce oblio

Track length4:03

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Excerpt, Pollarolo: Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Work length3:02

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Raffaele Pe (countertenor)
La Lira di Orfeo

Sdegnoso turbine

Track length3:02

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$1.30

Excerpt, Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Work length7:59

$2.00

$2.60

Raffaella Lupinacci (mezzo-soprano)

Son nata a lagrimar

Track length7:59

$2.00

$2.60

Excerpt, Piccinni: Cesare in Egitto

Work length13:42

$3.00

$3.90

Tergi le belle lagrime

Track length6:36

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Bella tel dica amore

Track length7:06

$2.00

$2.60

Excerpt, Pollarolo: Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Work length4:13

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Non temer!

Track length4:13

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Excerpt, Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Work length3:20

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Al lampo dell'armi

Track length3:20

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Excerpt, Bianchi, G F: La morte di Cesare

Work length4:53

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Rasserena i mesti rai

Track length4:53

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Excerpt, Handel: Ariodante

Work length11:27

$3.00

$3.85

Scherza infida

Track length11:27

$3.00

$3.85

About
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About

In Baroque opera the dramatic figure of Gaius Julius Caesar received a considerable amount of attention from librettists and composers alike, and not just from G.F. Handel working with Nicola Francesco Haym. With Giulio Cesare, a Baroque hero, Raffaele Pe creates a full recital devoted to the Ancient Roman warrior and Dictator of the Republic, drawn from operas spanning the length of the eighteenth century. With refined musicality and artistry the countertenor Pe approaches roles demonstrating contrasting personality traits of the Caesar who was capable not only of heroic acts but also of compassion, of amorous exhilaration, of physical and emotional fragility. The sweep of the eighteenth century encompassed by these compositions also embraced the onstage heyday of the castratos: including Felice Salimbeni, Senesino, Cusanino, Sciroletto and Gasparo Pacchiarotti – demanding from Raffaele Pe great agility in covering both contralto and soprano castrato tessituras. Alongside excerpts from Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto there are arias from works which Pe has been working onto provide modern performing scores together with scholar Valentina Anzani such as by Carlo Francesco Pollarolo, Niccolò Piccinni, Geminano Giacomelli andFrancesco Bianchi. Pe is accompanied here by La Lira di Orfeo directed by Luca Giardini, in this, their debut recording.

Reviews

January 2019

Pe’s voice is strong and clear-toned. He shows agility in the long runs…and his decorations of the vocal line are bravely inventive. He projects the tender aspects of Caesar’s character well, though the imperious elements require a little more ‘edge’ and fire…This is a fascinating collection, and Pe engages commendably with such a range of music originally written for so many different voices.

January 2019

You might be forgiven for expecting a bit more, well, warrioring in these portraits of a great statesman and military hero but it’s as a lover that we see him almost exclusively. Thank goodness for Hande;’s ‘Va tacito’ and ‘Al lampo dell’armi’, where Pe can flex his coloratura muscles and give us irony and ferocity to break up all the elegant languishing.

March 2019

Pe is naturally blessed with a voice that not only is an intrinsically beautiful instrument in itself, but also is strong and conveys masculinity in a way not achieved by all his colleagues. Which of course makes him a potentially ideal Caesar…But my major caveat is Pe’s ornamentation in da capos, which frequently strays much too far from the melodic line.

25th November 2018

We live in a golden age of countertenors, but few today are as exciting as this young Italian...Pe’s rich Italianate voice, astonishing breath control and dazzling technique make light of the coloratura of Pollarolo’s aria Sdegnoso turbine, but his expressive accounts of Handel’s duet for Sesto and Cornelia (with Rafaella Lupinacci) and Ariodante’s Scherza infida — slowish, but wrenching — are the highlights.

Giulio Cesare: A Baroque Hero

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