Carissimi: Historia di Jephte, Motets – Voces Suaves

For its sixth album on the Arcana label, Voces Suaves presents a programme dedicated to one of the most influential composers of the seventeenth century, the great Giacomo Carissimi. The album features Carissimi’s most famous work, the masterful oratorio Jephte, alongside two of his rarely performed virtuoso motets. It also includes the astonishingly theatrical Cristo smarrito, by Domenico Mazzocchi, Carissimi’s contemporary in Rome. The works on the album showcase the expressive power of Carissimi’s musical language, as well as the remarkable virtuosity of the singers who originally performed his music. Instrumental interludes by Carissimi – found in the collection of his pupil Marc-Antoine Charpentier – have been interpolated into the score of Jephte, creating a unique version of the oratorio as it may have been performed in Rome during the composer’s lifetime.