El Concierto Espanol - Music at the 18th-Century Spanish Court (2020)

This first disc from El Concierto Español, the orchestra founded by the violinist Emilio Moreno (who is both a founding member of the late Frans Bruggen’s Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and a great champion of Spanish music) is dedicated to one of the most important composers of the 18th century in Spain, Francisco Corselli. Of Italian origin, Corselli spent a considerable part of his career working for the Spanish court, to which he brought the opera seria which was enjoying so much success elsewhere in Europe at the time. Lively orchestral passages and colourful opera arias alternate here with deeply-felt Holy Week lamentations in a recording from 2002, which also involved the great Catalan soprano Nuria Rial, who once again demonstrates her precious talent in Spanish music.