Ambroisine Bré | Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews +

Niccolò Jommelli – a celebration
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré, Hugo Brady
Wigmore Hall, 18 September 2024

“Vidi il mar tutto in procella” from Ricimero, re de’ Goti (1740)
“Se il povero ruscello” from Ezio (1741)
“Io già sento nel mio petto” from Merope (1741)
“Crescon le fiamme” from Didone abbandonata (1763)
“De’ miei desiri ormai… Che farò?” from Il Vologeso (1766)
Duetto, “La destra ti chiedo” from Demofoonte (1764)
“ Ombre che tacite qui sede” from Fetonte (1768)
“Hereuse paix tranquille” from La critica (1766)
“Fra l’orror di notte oscura” from Armida abbandonata (1770)
“Prendi l’estremo addio” from Ifigenia in Tauride (1771)
“Sol del Tebro in su la sponda” from Il trionfo di Clelia (1774)
“Misera Armida … Odio, furor, dispetto” from Armida abbandonata (1770)

You would be forgiven for not having heard of Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774), although he does have a Facebook profile, with the above profile picture – and now wants me to be his ‘Friend’. A prolific Neopolitan composer well-known in his day, he composed around 80 operas. He was described at the time as “the creator of a quite new taste, and certainly one of the foremost musical geniuses who have ever lived“. Selections from 11 of these were featured in this concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of his death, the first in The Mozartists’ 2024/25 season. Their exploration of Mozart and the composers around him in their MOZART 250 project has revealed many little-known delights, and Jommelli is certainly one of them. Of the five times I have reviewed music by Jommelli on this website, most have been courtesy of The Mozartists, including their 2016 concert performance of Jommelli’s opera Il Vologeso.

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Jean-Baptiste Lully: Alceste
Les Talens Lyriques, Namur Chamber Choir, Christophe Rousset
Launch concert: Opéra Royal, Versailles, 10 December 2017
CD: Aparté AP164, 2CDs. 80’+70.59′

Lully: Alceste

Alceste ou Le Triomphe d’Alcide is an early example of Lully’s tragédie en musique in its fledgeling form of a Prologue followed by five Acts. It uses a libretto by Philippe Quinault, based on Euripides’ Alcestis. The first performance was given in January 1674 by the recently formed Académie Royale de Musique (later known as the Opéra de Paris) at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, adjoining the then residence of the King, the Louvre Palace. The occasion was the Louis XIV’s victory against the Spanish held Franche-Comté during the complexities of the Franco-Dutch War. Lully had only recently taken control of the opera scene in Paris and Versailles, and this was the second of the many operas created during this monopoly. Even though Versailles was not, at the time, the seat of Louis XIV (and indeed, most of it was not yet built), the sumptuous Opéra Royal (built around 100 years later, in 1770) was an appropriate venue for Les Talens Lyriques to launch this CD, with a concert performance.

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