Reviews
“Did so little happen during that half century between Heinrich Schutz (who died in 1672) and J.S. Bach’s heyday in the 1720s? Tempesta di Mare is among a handful of baroque orchestras correcting that perception with colorful [scores] and terrific Tempesta playing.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
“ ★★★★★… Tempesta di Mare has been making gorgeous Baroque music for a decade and is the only American group to record on the English Chandos label. This wonderful Fasch album shows us why.” Ariama, September 2012.
Tempesta di Mare is celebrating the end of a full decade of Baroque music-making with a ploy worthy of the Baroque functionaries who planned court entertainments built around clever fancies: Tempesta is conducting a three-concert, two-weekend festival in which all the pieces have a ten in their pedigrees. The first two concerts, presented Saturday night and Sunday afternoon in Center City, focused on chamber music and solo sonatas. Overall, the two programs demonstrated that the Baroque repertoire is so rich and varied that you can put together two meaty, entertaining concerts even when you limit your selections with a gimmicky rule invented for a special occasion.
…uniformly excellent, with precise intonation, energetic tempi, and virtuosic performances “Johann Friedrich Fasch is one of the most ignored yet most interesting composers of the late Baroque. This disc presents premiere recordings by Philadelphia’s baroque orchestra of four delightful works in three genres: two concerti, an ouverture, and a sinfonia. The disc is accompanied by…
…consummate artistry “Male soprano solid as a rock: The star of Tempesta di Mare’s Sunday afternoon concert was guest vocalist Michael Maniaci. In all three of the secular cantatas Sunday afternoon for an audience that nearly filled Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, he sang with consummate artistry, both technically and interpretively. Co-director Gwyn Roberts was joined…
…exemplary technical mastery, interpretive integrity and stylish panache “As it has done over the decade of its life, Tempesta di Mare performed a program [Leipzig Shortlist] that not only proved an historical point but that also proffered a series of musical delights. Fasch’s Concerto for Lute in D minor, Telemann’s Quatour VI in E minor,…
…period instruments concert on Hill the best ever “Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra, opened its 10th anniversary season with a concert Sunday afternoon in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. The program of music composed by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Friedrich Fasch, William Boyce, Antonio Vivaldi and Jean-Philippe Rameau drew an enthusiastic crowd…
Four Stars “The second of the six Early Music Festival programs featured only two composers: George Frideric Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti, more than sufficient to give us a sustained evening of high-quality Baroque music, both played and sung. Especially when presented by a Philadelphia group called Tempesta di Mare, which impressed more than the Rebel…
“Rearranging the master — The second concert [in the Festival] provided another example of the scholarship, musical imagination, and performing skill that supports the best early music performances. Gwyn Roberts and Richard Stone, directors of Tempesta di Mare, took six of Bach’s trio sonatas for organ and arranged them for different combinations of winds, strings, harpsichord…
“The Saturday performance at Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill was recorded live—the latest in Tempesta di Mare’s relationship with the Chandos label—and was worth preserving. The group, expanded to 25 or so musicians, was more than well-rehearsed; it had internalized the music. The performance revealed [Telemann’s Ino] narrative with admirable specificity and maintained a crackling energy…
“…sensational end to 2011 Fasch-Festtage’s first week The Philadelphia-based baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare underlined the fact that they are utterly devoted to Fasch’s music in the Catherinen-Saal in Zerbst tonight with an often breath-taking programme that consisted purely of his works, including two that had not been heard anywhere in Europe since the 18th…
Early-music groups are in the business of attracting audiences to music they didn’t know they were missing. So the question at last weekend’s Tempesta di Mare concerts was what sort of keys can unlock the demure, even obscure artistic sensibility of Alessandro Scarlatti, a giant in 18th-century Rome but one whose output is like a…
Tempesta di Mare’s imaginative co-directors based their Characters of the Dance program on an inspired theme. They preceded Bach’s First Orchestral Suite with two pieces that contained examples of the baroque dances that Bach elaborated in the suite. The program’s first half illustrated the dances with a ballet score by the French court composer Jean-Féry Rebel and…
“The concert drew an audience that literally packed the church and that enthusiastically rewarded the eight chamber players of the orchestra with hearty and heart-warming applause. It was unlikely that there was another concert dedicated solely the music of Francois Couperin in all of America, let alone one that drew a full house. The fact…
Rottsolk’s voice is supple and stylish…the performances are unflaggingly attractive and reveal one beautifully crafted aria after another.” Gramophone, July 2010 “A splendid showcase for these eloquent and committed musicians.” International Record Review, May 2010