Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710) was an Italian composer of opera and church music. A renowned virtuoso keyboard player in his day he was one of the most important Italian composers for harpsichord and organ between Frescobaldi and Scarlatti.
Among the more than seventy cantatas that have come down to us by Pasquini a small corpus of six cantatas for solo voice for bass and basso continuo stand out. Pasquini had entered the service of Giovanni Battista Borghese in 1667. He wrote these cantatas for the famous bass Francesco Verdone (ca. 1630-1694), who was also in the Borghese household. The cantata L’ombra di Solimano ('The Shadow of Suleiman') refers to the capitulation of the Turkish army besieged in Buda through the lament of the spectre of Sultan Suleiman I, who had conquered the city in 1541.
In between the cantatas this recording presents shorter works for harpsichord solo, written in Italian style, with the emphasis on melody and cantilena.
The bass Lisandro Abadie was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he began his musical studies. He graduated at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Musikhochschule Luzern. He has sung under the direction of William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Tõnu Kaljuste, Jordi Savall, Paul Agnew, Paul Goodwin, Giovanni Antonini, Fabio Bonizzoni, Skip Sempé, Hervé Niquet, among others.
Capella Tiberina was founded by Alexandra Nigito in order to blend a passion for early music with a rigorous approach to musicological research. Capella Tiberina specializes in the Italian Baroque repertoire, with a special emphasis on music originating in Rome. Among its recordings for Brilliant Classics are Bernardo Pasquini’s Passion Cantatas, Francesco Mancini’s Recorder Concertos, Alessandro Scarlatti’s Sinfonie di concerto grosso, and Domenico Scarlatti’s Violin Sonatas. Capella Tiberina performs on historical instruments.
Praise for Capella Tiberina on Brilliant Classics
‘There is no lack of drama in these performances, and that makes this disc an attractive proposition.’ MusicWeb.
