Giving The Text Its' Due

Gluck Italian Arias by Cecilia Bartoli and the Akadamie Fur Alte Musik Berlin led by Bernhard Forck, is another of her lavishly packaged and thoroughly researched "project" disks. As well as presenting several arias from Gluck operas, the hook on which to hang the project is the way in which Gluck is very respectful and conscious of the libretti written by Pietro Metastasio. Both of these 18th century artists can be seen to share the same ideas and creative development, rejecting the sort of abuses which reduced poetry to a mere support for outrageous displays of virtuosity with no basis in the logic of what was being expressed. Gluck and Metastasio both wished to establish the true function of music as they saw it; to clarify and intensify the changing emotions in the human heart. The quality of the poetry isn't immediately apparent to the non-Italian speaker of course but the full translated libretti are provided and the feeling put into the singing by Bartoli is clear to anyone. The Akademie Fur Alte Musik provide suitably appropriate and heartfelt support.