The ensemble Gli Scarlattisti was founded by Jochen M. Arnold in 1995 and consists of professional singers who have either studied music at a conservatory or have completed extensive vocal training in private instruction. The Scarlattisti are usually accompanied by a four-piece continuo group or the Barockorchester Capella Principale. Their first recording, released in 1998, featured the Musikalische Exequien and motets from the Geistliche Chor-Music (1648) of Heinrich Schütz. This was followed by a recording of Claudio Monteverdi’s Marienvesper in the continuo version, along with vesper psalms by Johann Rosenmüller (Vespro Veneziano). A recording of the J.S. Bach motet Jesu, meine Freude (BWV 227) and Domenico Scarlatti’s ten-part Stabat Mater appeared in 2006, together with Jochen M. Arnold’s Diptychon secundum Iohannem. The ensemble has made frequent concert tours and numerous radio recordings (with the Bayerischer and Hessischer Rundfunk, Südwestrundfunk) as well as festival appearances in Nuremberg, Kaufungen and Torgau, at the German Evangelical Synod in Hannover, and in Cologne. The repertoire of the Scarlattisti ranges from the Renaissance to the modern era. One critic has called the ensemble “the crème de la crème of the early music scene in southern Germany.” |