Luigi Rossi: La Lyra d’Orfeo & Arpa Davidica

The latest album from Christina Pluhar and her instrumental ensemble L'Arpeggiata sheds new light on the chamber cantatas of 17th century Italian composer, Luigi Rossi. He wrote more than 300 of these works and Christina Pluhar's new double album includes an impressive number of 21 world premiere recordings, which are the fruit of Christina Pluhar's research among music manuscripts held in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and the Vatican Library.

"These cantatas are works of rare beauty," says Pluhar, who describes Luigi Rossi as "one of the shining lights of 17th-century Italian vocal music. Supremely inventive and extremely versatile, he juxtaposed styles within a single work, often shifting from intense recitative to mellifluous song, while also venturing into daring harmonic regions." She has assembled a dazzling line-up of singers to perform the cantatas: sopranos Véronique Gens and Céline Scheen, mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli, and countertenors Philippe Jaroussky, Jakub Józef Orlinski and Valer Sabadus.