Limelight Editor’s Choice – Orchestra – September 2014

Deutsche Grammophon’s reboot of period performance imprint Archiv has definitely got off to a flying start, with stylish Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and acclaimed period instrument band Concerto Köln serving up fiery musical tapas from Baroque rock star Farinelli’s Spanish sojourn.

In 1737 King Philip V invites Carlo Broschi aka Farinelli, the greatest castrato of all time, to Madrid to sing solely for him. He accepts. After Philip’s death, Ferdinand VI appoints Farinelli artistic director of the palace theatres in Madrid’s Buen Retiro and Aranjuez. In his new role as impresario, Farinelli collaborates closely with librettist Pietro Metastasio and uses his extensive Neapolitan contacts to secure the services of some of the finest composers and musicians of the day. The results are game-changing.

“Farinelli secured the services of the finest composers and musicians of the day”

In his 12 years in the job, Farinelli succeeded, as Michael Church writes in his program notes, in raising the profile of Spanish music from “a kind of provinciality to being a major presence in the European mainstream”. Heras-Casado, whose own Aranjuez-based group La Compania Teatro del Principe...