94345
Alessandro
Stradella
La Susanna
Harmonices Mundi
Claudio Astronio
Alessandro Stradella 1639–1682
La Susanna
Oratorio in two parts · Libretto by Giovanni Battista Giardini
Narrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MARTIN ORO
Susanna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GEMMA BERTAGNOLLI
First Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SERGIO FORESTI
Second Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MIRKO GUADAGNINI
Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ISABEL ALVAREZ
Harmonices Mundi
Hedwig Raffeiner, Rossella Croce violin
Alessandro Palmeri cello · Nicola Dal Maso violone
Maurizio Piantelli theorbo · Simone Ori organ
Claudio Astronio harpsichord
Claudio Astronio
Compact Disc 1
1
2
Sinfonia avanti l’oratorio
48’27
5’26
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Prima Parte
Recitativo Dove bagna l’Eufrate
Coro a tre Se dall’Erebo si scatenò
Recitativo Covò nel cor sepolta
Aria Ma folle è ben chi crede
Recitativo Un dì ch’erano I vegli
Aria Freddo cielo e fiamma interna
Recitativo Arde il mio seno, oh Dio
Aria Ancor io d’Amor fui colto
Recitativo Or sì ch’io respiro
Duetto Chi dama non ama
Recitativo Gran bene e gran bellezza
Aria Voglio amare e che sarà
Recitativo Ma qual fu la bellezza
Coro a tre La bellezza è un puro saggio
Recitativo Giunta la donna ove svenato un sasso
Aria Quanto invidio il vostro stato
Recitativo Gran Dio, poiché dal grembo
Aria Zeffiretti che spiegate
Recitativo Al terminar l’incanto
Aria No no, non va
Recitativo Ma dove non s’avanza
Duetto Susanna non temer
Recitativo Così d’Elcia la figlia
Duetto Non esser, no, ritrosa
Recitativo Qui non ci vede alcun
Coro a cinque Fu sempre letale impuro amor
1’21
1’33
0’43
1’50
0’54
3’45
1’49
3’24
0’30
1’21
0’27
1’12
1’58
1’09
1’21
5’07
1’03
1’59
1’52
1’40
0’40
0’47
0’41
1’06
2’08
2’25
3
Compact Disc 2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
4
Seconda Parte
Aria Voi donzelle
Recitativo Venite meco ove in ferrate grotte
Aria Da chi spero aita, o Cieli
Recitativo Ah sì, pur troppo è vero
Aria Ma costanza, miei fidi pensieri
Recitativo Così l’afflitta donna
Duetto Dell’opra nefanda
Recitativo Volse parlar la donna
Aria Sventurata! E sarà vero
Recitativo Signor che tutto vedi
Aria Così va, turbe insane, così va
Recitativo Io vi deploro, sudditi infelici!
Aria Vecchio nefando, io so
Recitativo Sotto frondoso mirto
Aria Collegata col potere
Recitativo E tu, spirto maligno
Terzetto Infelici il Ciel irato
Recitativo Voi ch’in trono d’Astrea
Coro a tre Belle figlie d’Israelle
Coro a cinque Chi contro all’innocenza
41’33
2’07
1’07
8’05
0’52
1’45
1’32
1’10
1’45
2’27
2’12
1’36
1’17
1’19
0’23
2’27
2’32
3’48
1’32
1’34
1’51
Italian harpsichord by Tony Chinnery (Vicchio, Italy), modelled on an instrument by Grimaldi
Positive Organ by Giorgio Carli (Pescantina, Italy)
Critical edition of La Susanna by Victor Crowther, published in the Edizione Nazionale dell'Opera
Omnia di Alessandro Stradella (Edizioni ETS, Pisa 2002; Serie III, Vol.1) – General Editor: Carolyn
Gianturco
Claudio Astronio would like to thank Michael Talbot for his kind assistance
Sung texts available on www.brilliantclassics.com
Live recording: 10 & 11 August 2011, Schloss Maretsch, Bolzano, Italy
Sound engineer & Mastering: Matteo Costa · Editing: Gabriele Robotti
Instrumental care and technical assistance: Romano Danesi
Logistics and production management: Andrea Gallesi & Ugo Orrigo
Artistic direction: Pamela Lucciarini
Cover image: Susanna and the Elders by Jacques Blanchard (1600–38). Photograph: Agnew’s, London, UK /
The Bridgeman Art Library
Booklet photographs: Gregor Khuen Belasi
& 2012 Brilliant Classics
5
‘Impure love was ever lethal’:
Baroque eroticism hiding under the cloak of moral instruction
During the final quarter of the 17th century, the oratorio genre flourished with unprecedented
vigour in Modena, the capital of a petty but affluent statelet in Italy’s Po Valley. Several leading
Italian composers participated in this wave of creativity, leaving a legacy of about 100 remarkable
scores. The commissions did not come from churches, religious brotherhoods and noble families,
as would have been the case in larger centres like Rome, Florence, Venice and Naples; instead,
they came from the local ruler, the music-loving Duke Francesco II of Este. Oratorio productions
occurred principally during Lent, and in a single venue: the Oratorio di San Carlo Rotondo, which
still stands today. The number of performances rose steadily from three in 1680 to thirteen in 1689,
although Duke Francesco passed away in late 1684 and was succeeded by his less lavishly inclined
son Rinaldo.
Alessandro Stradella (1639, Nepi, near Viterbo – 1682, Genoa) was neither the respected head
of a large cappella nor a renowned singer or instrumentalist; he was, rather, a freelance musiciancum-businessman who led an adventurous, and at times scandalous, life. Nevertheless, he was an
extremely influential composer during his lifetime, and his significance was felt long after his death.
Handel found it worthwhile to study and transcribe his music during his Italian sojourn some three
decades later, even borrowing from it for his English oratorio Israel in Egypt (1739). Duke Francesco’s
appreciation of Stradella’s art is evidenced by the fact that the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in
Modena (once the library of the Este court) holds more than half of his surviving output, including
operas, prologues, cantatas, oratorios, serenatas, intermezzos and instrumental works.
La Susanna, specially commissioned by the Duke and dedicated to him on the title page of the
libretto, was something of a swan song for Stradella, since the composer was stabbed to death the
following year in Genoa – reportedly because of an affair with a married woman from the noble
Lomellini family. It is ironic that this flamboyant oratorio should deal precisely with the perils of
unrestrained lust, as expressed in the final chorus of its first part: ‘Fu sempre letale impuro amor’
(‘Impure love was ever lethal’).
Far from being the only work of its kind, La Susanna belongs to a subgenre that Howard E.
Smither has termed the ‘erotic oratorio’. This odd-sounding appellation describes sacred music
dramas of the 17th and 18th centuries that take their plots, which feature a heavy sexual content,
8
from the Bible, the Apocrypha or the lives of the Saints – thereby giving the audience moral
instruction in an attractive and quasi-operatic, albeit usually unstaged, form. Judith, Esther, Delilah,
Bathsheba, Saints Mary Magdalene, Cecilia, Agatha and their companions are the favoured heroines
of these stories, and their feminine charms, which exert a dangerous influence on men’s behaviour,
are graphically depicted in the librettos.
Even by modern standards, the plot of La Susanna, drawn from chapter 13 of the Book of
Daniel, is compelling. Martin Luther translated it separately from his German Bible text, placing it
in the Apocrypha, which he nevertheless characterised as ‘books that do not exactly contain Holy
Scripture, but are useful and good to read’. His argument that the story of Susanna (as transmitted
by the Greek Septuagint Bible) is a simple political creation originating from the Hellenistic
diaspora, since Jewish Bibles do not include it, is as old as Julius Africanus (3rd century AD), but
was already being challenged during the same period by Hippolytus and Origen on the grounds that
the rabbis who established the Jewish biblical canon would hardly have looked favourably on a
narrative that turned the Elders of Israel into villains.
At any rate, both the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches include Daniel 13 in
their Bibles as a ‘deuterocanonical’ text, one belonging to the ‘second canon’. Before the most recent
liturgical reforms, the Roman rite had the story of Susanna recited during Mass on the Saturday
after the third Sunday in Lent, thus relating it to the Gospel of the day: John 8: 1–11, which
concerns the adulteress who Jesus saved from being stoned. Since, in 1681, the ‘Susanna Mass’ was
due for celebration on 15 March, it is tempting to date to this point the Duke’s idea to commission
an oratorio on the same subject from Stradella, whose comic opera Il Trespolo tutore he had just
received in score from the Genoese nobleman Goffredo Marino.
Stradella seems to have reacted with considerable speed. The dedication on the printed libretto is
dated 16 April, so the premiere must have occurred shortly afterwards. The Duke’s secretary,
Giovanni Battista Giardini, a poet of some distinction, served as librettist. Giardini’s legal training
surfaces in certain witty innuendos concerning the misdeeds of judges and attorneys in every age,
yet the general level is serious and not lacking in high drama. The libretto – even though filled to
the brim with pearls of Baroque rhetoric involving wordplay, metaphor and anachronistic allusion
to Classical antiquity and contemporary Italian custom alike – remains true to the biblical narrative.
It includes ingredients of a detective story, accurately describes the submission of women in a
patriarchal society and contrasts the virtuous moral behaviour of young people with the sexual
9
rapacity of aged dignitaries who misuse their power under a cloak of feigned respectability.
Susanna, a married lady of outstanding beauty and honesty, arouses the desire of two elders
appointed as judges by the Jewish community in Babylon. Having revealed to each other their
lustful passion by accident, they conspire to seduce her. When they surprise her alone, bathing in her
husband’s garden, she refuses to yield to them, whereupon they accuse her of committing adultery
with an unidentified man who has escaped. On the basis of their own testimony, they sentence
Susanna to be stoned to death. However, as Susanna is being led to execution, the prophet Daniel,
a wise young man of rare wisdom, pleads for the case to be reopened and asks each of the judges
under what kind of tree the alleged affair took place. As their stories do not tally, they are executed
in the same manner, and Susanna’s honour is restored.
Stradella scored Giardini’s text for two sopranos (Susanna and Daniel), a contralto (‘Testo’, or
the Narrator), a tenor (Second Judge) and a bass (First Judge), while all the characters join forces in
the ensembles assigned to a commenting and moralising ‘coro’ for three or five voices in madrigal
style. The two parts of the oratorio proceed as a series of recitatives, ariosos, arias and ensembles
(duets plus one trio). The recitatives are flexible and finely wrought, written in the style of
Monteverdi and Cavalli’s operas, as opposed to the rather formulaic patterns of ‘recitativo secco’
that predominated during the next decades. Even in the closed numbers most of the vocal lines are
syllabic and avoid elaborate coloratura (which contemporary singers were nevertheless expected to
provide extempore). Rapid divisions are called for in just a few places – notably in Susanna’s
‘Quanto invidio il vostro stato’, where explicit reference to singing, both by birds and by the
delightful woman herself, is made in the libretto. Otherwise, the musical discourse is terse, aiming
more for dramatic credibility and the rendering of psychological nuances than for virtuosic display.
One such instance is the climactic ‘Da chi spero aita, o Cieli’, once again for Susanna, which is
structured as a chaconne-like lament, given emphasis by lacerating dissonances in the strings.
Similarly, in Daniel’s ‘Così va, turbe insane, così va’ the prophet’s disdainful attitude towards the
madding crowd is depicted through wide leaps and an aggressive, march-like gait in steady tempo.
The instruments, two violins plus a continuo section, are employed either in direct
accompaniment to the voices or independently in ritornellos, brief introductions and postludes that
develop the themes of the vocal sections imitatively. The drama is introduced by a four-movement
Sinfonia that displays Stradella’s skill in counterpoint.
Carlo Vitali, 2012
10
Clockwise from top left: Isabel Alvarez, Martin Oro, Gemma Bertagnolli, Sergio Foresti,
Mirko Guadagnini
11
Back
2cd
MM_IL_JB, Juwelbox Inlay, (c) MediaMotion 02-2007
2CD 94345
Front
Alessandro Stradella 1639–1682
STRADELLA LA SUSANNA
HARMONICES MUNDI · CLAUDIO ASTRONIO
La Susanna
STRADELLA LA SUSANNA
HARMONICES MUNDI · CLAUDIO ASTRONIO
Oratorio in two parts · Libretto by Giovanni Battista Giardini
Narrator ...................................................................... MARTIN ORO
Susanna ...................................................... GEMMA BERTAGNOLLI
First Judge ............................................................... SERGIO FORESTI
Second Judge .................................................. MIRKO GUADAGNINI
Daniel ..................................................................... ISABEL ALVAREZ
Harmonices Mundi
Claudio Astronio
CD 1 Prima Parte 48’27
CD 2 Seconda Parte
41’33
Sung texts available on www.brilliantclassics.com
94345
www.brilliantclassics.com
MM_IL_JB, Juwelbox Inlay, (c) MediaMotion 02-2007
2CD 94345
Live recording: 10 & 11 August 2011, Schloss Maretsch, Bolzano, Italy
DDD STEMRA
& 2012 Brilliant Classics
Manufactured and printed in the EU