Passions : Venezia 1600-1750

"The transition between the Renaissance and the Baroque eras did not mark one sudden change of forms or styles ... Composers paid special attention to the innovations in the music of Venice, which eventually spread throughout Europe in the 17th and early 18th centuries, and such figures as Monteverdi, Antonio Lotti, and Antonio Caldara, long associated with the city, became exemplars of the new Venetian style, in both secular and sacred music. A case in point is illustrated in this 2019 Harmonia Mundi release by Geoffroy Jourdain and Les Cris de Paris, which offers passionate music in pieces by these composers, as well as music by Tarquinio Merula, Francesco Cavalli, Giovanni Legrenzi, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Biagio Marini. Lotti's three settings of the "Crucifixus," from the Latin Credo, are of particular significance on this program, along with settings by Monteverdi and Caldara, though there is a substantial representation of vocal and choral works on other texts which reflect the same intensity and nearly theatrical displays of emotions. Jourdain and the voices and period instruments of Les Cris de Paris have delivered a compelling album of affecting performances, and the recording at the Métropôle Saint-Césaire in Arles is reverberant but focused on details, so every nuance is captured".

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