Salve Regina

"Robin Blaze's clear, pure countertenor is the ideal voice for these pieces, and he sings them with impressive authority. The Parley of Instruments adds sensitive support."
***** Five Stars (Pick of the Month) BBC Music Magazine (June 2001)

'Robin Blaze has justifiably moved quickly into the elite of counter-tenors. Not only is he convincing vocally but his interpretative instincts are sound' (Cathedral Music)

'In its subtle way this disc will add to our understanding and love of this treasure-house as surely as the first [Sacred Music of Monteverdi] did' (International Review)

'Robin Blaze's clear, pure countertenor is the ideal voice for these pieces, and he sings them with impressive authority. Pick of the month' (BBC Music Magazine)

'I would recommend this disc to anyone with a love for baroque vocal music' (www.musicweb)

'An appealing concert of Venetian sacred music … as always with Hyperion, gorgeous sound' (Early Music Society News, USA)

Sacred music underwent drastic and sudden change in the 1620s. The polychoral style of Giovanni Gabrieli was replaced. Instead of lavish writing for divided choirs, the emphasis was now on a few solo voices, while Gabrieli's opulent groups of cornetts, violins and trombones were replaced by much smaller groups usually consisting just of strings. At the same time, there was much more emphasis on virtuosity, and the grandeur of the Gabrieli style was replaced by much more intimate one based on the idioms of secular music. Monteverdi, maestro di capella at St Mark's in Venice from 1613, used this new concerted style extensively in his later church music, but it was developed to its fullest extent in the 1630s and 40s by his colleagues and followers, such as Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti and Giovanni Rovetta, and it was still current in the 1680s, when Giovanni Legrenzi was working at St Marks. (Works by all can be found here.)
This recording is a survey of this rich and still little-known repertory, concentrating on music for a solo male alto voice with strings. Venetian churches, like their counterparts elsewhere in Italy, seem to have used castrati or falsettists rather than boys to sing the upper parts of church music, and so there is a wealth of material from the period suitable for modern countertenors.

ROBIN BLAZE read Music at Magdalen College, Oxford, and won a post-graduate scholarship to the Royal College of Music, London where he now holds an Associate Professorship. Robin's father is a professional golfer and Robin enjoys a few rounds on the green between rehearsal calls.
Robin's opera engagements have included Narciso in Handel's Agrippina in Karlsruhe, Unulfo in Jonathan Miller's production of Handel's Rodelinda at the Broomhill Opera Festival and Anfinomo Il Ritorno D'ulisse In Patria at the Teatro Sao Carlos, Lisbon, His busy concert schedule has taken him to Europe, North and South America, Japan and Australia working with many distinguished conductors in the early music field. He has visited festivals in Saintes, Beaune, Karlsruhe, Arolsen, Boston, Utrecht, Jerusalem and Barossa Valley. He regularly appears with Robert King and the King's Consort, Christopher Hogwood and The Academy of Ancient Music, Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale and Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort. Other engagements have included Bach's St John Passion with Harry Christophers and the Northern Sinfonia, St Matthew Passion with Richard Hickox and The City of London Sinfonia, Messiah with Tafelmusik in Toronto and Bach Cantatas with Gustav Leonhardt and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Vienna and Rome. Robin has given recitals at the Théâtre Grévin in Paris, in Karlsruhe, for BBC Radio 3 and has appeared at London's Wigmore Hall with Graham Johnson and the viol consort 'Concordia'.

Future engagements include Handel's La Resurezzione with Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert in France, Germany and The Netherlands and the premiere of Geraint Lewis' A Shining Piece singing the role of Rupert Brooke.