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RECORDINGS
Choral and Song
RASI ET AL.: "LA VOCE DI ORFEO"
 Zanasi; Casati (narrator); La Chimera, Egüez. Texts and translations. Naïve NAI 8925
This disc proved quite enjoyable after I managed to figure out exactly what it was. Neither the album cover nor the spine lists any composer information. Inside the booklet, after the title, it says "gli amori di francesco rasi," or "friends of Francesco Rasi." Further reading yielded some illumination: Rasi (1574-1621) was a poet, composer and singer. He studied with Caccini, befriended Monteverdi, and sang leading roles in operas by both composers. In fact, he created the leading role in Monteverdi's Orfeo — hence, presumably, the album's title. The compilation of early Italian Baroque vocal works assembled for this disc is divided into three sections, each of them (according to the booklet notes) "representing one of the amatory conditions that Francesco Rasi regularly treated in the works he sang or composed." Represented composers include the aforementioned ones (including Rasi himself), as well as Sigismondo d'India, one of Monteverdi's most highly accomplished contemporaries, and a handful of other lesser-known lights of the era. Eduardo Egüez, the lutenist and director of La Chimera, contributes brief "sinfonia" movements to introduce each section. A picture begins to emerge.
Just about every track is tuneful, interesting, and laden with large doses of passion. This is a great opportunity to be reminded of how quirky and fervent the music of this important era can be. It's also a well-calibrated mix of the strophic, the through-composed, and the instrumental. Speaker Giulio Casati provides intermittent narration, using texts drawn from the period.
The middle section of the disc is devoted to evocations of Orpheus, and opens, appropriately, with a selection from Orfeo—the stirring and heartfelt "Rosa del ciel." The Rasi selection that follows holds its own suprisingly well against Monteverdi. The centerpiece of this grouping, however, is d'India's seven-minute "Che vegg'io ohimè," a passionate, grieving scene which cuts right to the heart of Orpheus's loss ("Who, alas, takes you from me, Eurydice, my beloved?"). This dramatic piece is a great showcase for baritone Furio Zanasi, an early music specialist, who delivers a gripping performance with lots of theatrical range and convincing characterization. (He has recorded the role of Monteverdi's Orfeo twice). Zanasi displays a warm, caressing sound and consistently clear delivery throughout the disc, but he is also well-attuned to his texts and the roiling feelings contained therein. He's a storyteller as well as a vocalist, so we never tire of hearing him. He outdoes himself in the last selection, "Non havea febo ancora," a delicious little strophic ditty about unfaithful love, which should be enough all by itself to put its forgotten composer, Antonio Brunelli, back on the map.
Also to be savored is the splendid playing by the members of La Chimera: Sabina Colonna-Preti plays viola da gamba, violone and lirone; Marina Bonetti plays triple harp; and Egüez plays archlute, lute, theorbo and Baroque guitar. They form a magnificent, plucked mini-orchestra with continuo and occasional bowed string solos.
JOSHUA ROSENBLUM
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