Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake, undoubtedly two of the most authoritative interpreters of the Lied repertoire, are called upon to follow in the footsteps of the eccentric and adventurous Romantic poet George Gordon Byron. Here are the Hebrew Melodies, poems written to accompany music by Isaac Nathan, but also set by the likes of Schumann, Loewe and Beethoven. Also Wilhelm Müller, the author of the texts for Schubert’s cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, was well acquainted with the work of the English poet and, like him, supported the cause of Greek independence. If Byron’s verses flow through the history of 19^th century Lied like a karst river, his presence will be acknowledged through a reading of his poems by the writer and literary critic Lucasta Miller.

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The Po Valley was evangelised during the first centuries of Christianity, which explains why the most important cities here often share the same founding martyr saints. For example, the memory of Saint Apollinaris, the proto-bishop whom Ravenna chose as its patron saint and whose remains it still preserves, is also solemnly celebrated in Venice, in the Basilica of Saint Mark, on 23 July. In 1670 the choirmaster of the Venetian Basilica, Giovanni Legrenzi, was probably commissioned to compose for the occasion. Born in Bergamo, Legrenzi was a key figure in the development of instrumental music, laying the foundations for its success in the following century. And although it is not certain that Antonio Vivaldi was his pupil, he certainly listened to his music and adopted its basic features.

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An extraordinarily fecund relationship links the Italian ‘new music’ of the post-war period with history. Luigi Nono, in particular, used technology to rethink sound emission techniques, reverberation, and the relationship with space. He traced this approach back to the ancient Venetian tradition, which he explored in Das atmende Klarsein, now entrusted to two of his faithful collaborators, Roberto Fabbriciani and Alvise Vidolin. This meditation on death, edited by Massimo Cacciari, draws on Rilke’s Duino Elegies and on texts inscribed on Orphic tablets found in the tombs of deceased mystery-cult initiates. Death and the relationship between the human and the divine are also explored in the vocal counterpoint inspired by the Holy Week Office of Tomás Luis de Victoria, a great Spanish composer who worked in Rome during Palestrina’s time.

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Orazio Vecchi, the choirmaster in the cathedral of Modena between the 16^th and 17^th centuries, was one of the few who knew how to bend the expressiveness of the polyphonic madrigal towards the comic, loading it with a popular theatricality that was unprecedented in the Renaissance practice of “singing upon the book”. His literary influences were not the popular poets of the time, such as Tasso, Guarini, and Petrarch, but rather vernacular poets like Giulio Cesare Croce, the author of the adventures of Bertoldo. In his ‘harmonic comedy’ L’Amfiparnaso, characters like the stuttering old miser Pantalone, his servant Predolino, the classic lovers’ couple, and the pedantic Graziano are featured. Vecchi’s theatre is built on endless allusions, while the music supports and encourages the free mixing of sound, song, acting, dance and pantomime. Not surprisingly, all specialties of the Commedia dell’Arte.

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When Haydn, no longer a young man and freed from his obligations to the Esterházy family, accepted an invitation from the impresario Salomon to go to London, he ‘discovered’ the success that Handel’s oratorios enjoyed there. On his return to Vienna, he brought with him a libretto based on Genesis and Milton’s Paradise Lost: translated into German by Gottfried van Swieten, this became the starting point for his most famous oratorio. The idea of the world’s creation is presented through a formal elaboration process, beginning with the well-known overture, ‘The Representation of Chaos’. But when the archangel Raphael begins to narrate the story of Genesis, the chorus announces the light, and a sudden C major chord initiates the creative process, ushering in life. The Accademia Bizantina and the Vienna Philharmonic Choir make an excellent partnership to restore the refined richness of this piece.

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In just a few years, he would become one of the most prominent opera composers of the 18^th century. He would rival Händel in London, mentor the great castrati Farinelli and Caffarelli, and influence Haydn in Vienna. Sadly, he would eventually die in poverty in his hometown of Naples. And it was for Naples that the very young Porpora composed this oratorio dedicated to the Passion of Christ, in which he already showed the mastery of contrapuntal technique and the sensitivity to vocal virtuosity of his approaching maturity. Mary, John, and Magdalene witness Christ’s crucifixion together with Divine Justice. But the latter’s unwavering confidence is not enough to ease the Virgin’s suffering. She barely resists falling into despair, revealing the mixture of humanity and theatricality that one expects from any great mourner.

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Biographies