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Concerto Italiano & Rinaldo Alessandrini
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Concerto Italiano & Rinaldo Alessandrini · Concerto Italiano is an Italian early music ensemble known for its performances of Monteverdi and Vivaldi. The harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini founded it. The ensemble plays according to historical performance practice, that is, with the instruments and playing styles of the time of the music itself. It made its debut in Rome in 1984 with La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli.
Music and breakthrough
After that Concerto Italiano recorded the madrigals of Monteverdi. Those recordings won many prizes, including three Gramophone Awards, and also the German record critics' prize, the Académie Charles Cros and the Vivaldi prize of the Fondazione Cini. The ensemble was under contract to Opus 111, which later belonged to the French label Naïve. Together with the university library of Turin it began recording all of Vivaldi's operas and concertos, part of which had not been performed for more than three hundred years. The highlights include the opera L'Olimpiade, La Senna Festeggiante and a version of Le Quattro Stagioni that Gramophone called one of the best.
Influence
In School of Rock, the ensemble represents the madrigal around 1600, the form in which poets and composers wrote out feelings down to the smallest details. Alessandrini and his singers let you hear how strongly that music moves with the words: every turn in the text is given a sound of its own. That makes their recordings suitable for hearing why Italian madrigalists became so famous.
Listening
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (Gesualdo) · Concerto Italiano & Rinaldo Alessandrini, 1611