Uno + One: Italia Nostra

UNO+ONE: Italia Nostra
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Artist: Tenet, Claudio Monteverdi, Bellerofonte Castaldi, Luigi Rossi, Dario Castello, Martino Pesenti, Johannes Hieronymous Kapsberger
Genre: Classical
Label: Avie

New York vocal ensemble Tenet here offers a Monteverdi-rich selection of 17th-century Italian vocal duets and solos. The two sopranos – Jolle Greenleaf (who is also the group’s artistic director) and Molly Quinn – sound as if they’re having a ball of a time, delighting in nimbly negotiating the athletic workouts that are so often used in this repertoire to communicate emotional pain and despair. The voices blend so well that the works for single voice seem, by comparison, to be missing something. But the cantata by Luigi Rossi and madrigal by Martino Pesenti still sound altogether more persuasive than the purely instrumental items by Castaldi, Castello, and Kapsberger, where the playing constitutes something of a weak link. url.ie/e8oo

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan is a music critic and Irish Times contributor