New Release: An Italian Rant! (Opella Nova Records, ONCD 015)

'terrifically animated, wonderful energy… gorgeous!'- BBC Radio 3's CD Review with Andrew McGregor

Italian instrumental music captivated 18th-century Britain with its tunefulness, drama, and sheer beauty. For this project, director Žak Ozmo has handpicked repertoire that allows L’Avventura London to explore a new dimension to several Italian favourites, including works by Corelli, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Geminiani, and Paradisi. This disc also reveals the talents of neglected composer G. B. Cervetto with a premiere of his marvellous Sonata in G minor. Highlights include Corelli’s ‘La Follia’ (played with dramatic passion by Bojan Čičić), Geoffrey Coates’s hauntingly beautiful interpretation of Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto, Op. 9, No.2, a brilliant performance of Paradisi’s idiosyncratic Sonata No. 7 by harpsichordist David Gordon, and an imaginative new arrangement of the quirky country dance ‘An Italian Rant’.

See Italian Rant! CD in our on-line shop details and audio preview.

Handel in the Playhouse (Opella Nova Records, ONCD 014)

'A fascinating insight into Handel and the English ballad opera tradition. L'Avventura show excellent musicianship...'-Gramophone

As today, the timeless melodies of George Frideric Handel were also favourites of eighteenth-century music-lovers in Britain. His melodies were appropriated and used extensively in ballad opera, a very successful type of early English musical theatre. In order to create ballad operas, authors combined comic plays and preexisting ‘Airs’ to which they would fit new words in English. Handel’s Italian opera and instrumental melodies were among those most frequently selected for this purpose, helping him to become Britain’s favourite composer.

See Handel CD in our on-line shop for details and an audio preview.

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