For the 350th anniversary of its first performance (composed on the occasion of the Jubilee Year 1675)
San Giovanni Battista
Oratorio in two parts for five voices, concertino and concerto grosso
text Ansaldo Ansaldi
music Alessandro Stradella (1643-1682)
Erodiade la figlia Silvia Frigato soprano
Erodiade la madre Dorota Szczepańska soprano
San Giovanni Battista Danilo Pastore countertenor
Consigliere Roberto Manuel Zangari tenor
Erode Masashi Tomosugi bass
Ensemble Mare Nostrum
conductor Andrea De Carlo
Alessandro Stradella, a Bologna-born composer of extraordinary expressive power in both the operatic and sacred repertoires, led a stormy life until he was stabbed in Genoa in 1682, the circumstances of his murder still unknown. Most of his oratorios – true sacred dramas, though not intended for the stage – were composed in Rome, where he was trained and spent most of his life. The most notable of these is St John the Baptist, which focuses on the events culminating in the beheading of the Baptist at the court of the lecherous Herod. This is one of Stradella’s many scores for an orchestra conceived as two groups of different sizes, the concerto grosso (the full orchestra) and the concertino (a small group of soloists), interacting with each other.
