In the Baroque period, the duetto da camera, usually conceived for two equal voices and continuo, was an important form of vocal chamber music, of which innumerable examples are found in the works of composers associated with Venice, the leading protagonist in the history of this genre. Venetian Sara Mingardo is joined by a large group of young, talented solo female voices (Silva Frigato, Lea Desandre) in this amazing project, where masterpieces by the leading composers of the time have been entrusted to the voices best suited to highlight the respective particular musical content. Included in this recording are several previously unpublished and unperformed works, which have been newly transcribed and edited by the harpsichordist Edward Smith. At the heart of the programme, Sara Mingardo leaves her colleagues for a moment to appear as soloist in Fuggi pur, o crudele by Francesco Lucio, a splendid and typical lamento recorded here for the first time and destined to become a big hit.

After the award-winning recording of Britten’s Turn of the Screw, released on Virgin Classics in 2002, Daniel Harding and Ian Bostridge meet again around Britten in his great masterpiece, Billy Budd. This new recording is a new asset to the label, which has planned a complete Britten opera cycle. The opera, in its definitive 2-act version, was recorded during 2 concert performances at the Barbican Hall on 7th & 9th December 2007. As principal guest conductor, Daniel Harding conducts the London Symphony Orchestra. The all-male cast boasts, along with Ian Bostridge as Captain Vere, American baritone Nathan Gunn in the role of Billy Budd, and Israeli bass-baritone, Gidon Saks, portraying the fiendish Claggart. EMI artist Jonathan Lemalu also contributes to the cast. “Billy Budd is one of Britten’s greatest masterpieces, containing three of his major operatic roles. Set amid the claustrophobia and cruelties of a battleship in Nelson’s time, it shows the ruthless destruction of good-hearted able seaman Budd by sadistic master-at-arms Claggart, and the mental conflicts of intellectual but weak-willed Captain Vere, who is powerless to prevent it. The music is suitably gripping, by turns intense and exciting, and full of the insights and inspirations typical of its composer."