Baroque connections

A sequence of recordings of baroque music reveals just how well connected musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries were with each other. The expanding music print publishing industry, singers’ and players’ travels abroad, and the cultural and diplomatic policies of their patrons led to the development of sophisticated networks of musical knowledge, practice and influences. The compositional output of Alessandro Stradella is a case in point. Once better known for his colourful life and violent death than for his music, Stradella is beginning to make a comeback in the concert hall and recording studio, thanks in large part to the efforts of conductor and researcher Andrea De Carlo. Alessandro Stradella: Un angelo del Paradiso—the Orrigoni songbook (Arcana A571, issued 2024) mostly features music from three operas he wrote for the Teatro Falcone in Genoa. La forza dell’amor paterno (The force of paternal love), Le garre dell’amor eroico (The braveries of heroic love) and his comic masterpiece Il Trespolo tutore (Trespolo the guardian) were presented during Genoa’s 1678/1679 season, a year after Stradella had moved to the city from Turin following an attempt on his life. The operas were star vehicles for the castrato Marc’Antonio Orrigoni, who was on loan to Genoa from Duke Francesco II d’Este of Modena. In a letter to his Venetian patron Polo Michiel, Stradella described Orrigoni as ‘like an angel from Paradise’—hence the album’s title.