JOHANN GOTTLIEB NAUMANN (1741-1801): La Passione di Gesù Cristo.

Description: In mid-2006 cpo offered Naumann's last oratorio - Betulia liberata - a work so complex that its choruses baffled the performers and the work remained unperformed in his lifetime. This is his first, from 1767 (also to the popular Metastasio text), and is quite in the prevailing Italian style (like Mozart's own setting of Betulia from 1770). Two big arias center each part, one accompanied by solo violin, the other by bassoon. 2 CDs. Italian-English texts. Monica Bragadin (mezzo), Makoto Sakurada, Raffaele Giordani (tenors), Alfredo Grandini (bass), Coro La Stagione Armonica, Orchestra de Padova e del Veneto; Sergio Balestracci.