Today I thought I would just listen and not post, but alas… I updated the kernel on my Roon Core computer, rebooted, and up came Roon with the recommendation of a recent release I had overlooked—the new album by the young Italian soprano Francesca Aspromonte. But I decided not to post this new release, but her debut on Pentatone from 2018 when she was only 27 years young…
This album is an absolutely brilliant debut—as a baroque singer she has a beautiful and controlled voice and creates with her singing a stunning emotional atmosphere. Enrico Onofri with his Il Pomo D’Oro ensemble are the perfect musicians to accompany the music by Monteverdi, Caccini, Cavalli and others. The programming is brilliant, too. The album is made up by prologue scenes of early baroque operas, being the Prologue an allegorical personification which at the very beginning of a work comments on what is to be presented.
In addition to the musical quality of the album, the recording and mastering by Pentatone is first class. It’s altogether an album to be treasured by those who enjoy very early operas from the beginning of the 17th century…
Nice find 
This album (Accentus, 2018) is the companion of the other one from this year with the horn and clarinet quintets I recently posted. It’s a 3-CD set with Mozart’s complete string quintets, including the early ones. I like the way the Klenkes interpret Mozart… it’s free of the sometimes overly sweet and lush tone from former times. The mostly vibrato-less and incisive playing sounds a little harsher, but I like it a lot better.
This is very lovely indeed. Indie-folly-pschy- ness with beautiful harmony vocals.
Perfect for this time of night on a ‘schoolday’-thanks Roon!
Thank you to @Michael_Dollan for posting a track from this excellent album earlier. Bill Callahan’s last album as Smog. Always a pleasure to listen to this one.
