The most unknown musical Venice of the 17th century is reborn in Venice’s Fragrance, the last album of the acclaimed set Artemandoline, in which voice and mandolin dialogue in jewels scrupulously chosen by Juan Carlos Muñoz and Mari Fe Pavón, bringing new life to brilliant writing, of great contrasts and bringing to the present the best of Venetian baroque. With almost two decades of experience in the most select circuit of early music, The Artemandoline string ensemble was founded by Juan Carlos Muñoz and Mari Fe Pavón with the purpose of recreating, with original instruments and philological criteria, works of the past drinking from original sources. In a continuous search for forgotten scores, they try to recover and update the beauty of the repertoire offered by the baroque mandolin and the different plucked string instruments of the time, both alone and combined with the human voice. And for this there is no better vehicle than that of 17th century Venetian music. The city of canals, Baroque cultural and intellectual center par excellence, at the time attracted the greatest creators, and for this reason Venice’s Fragrance includes pieces of absolute excellence selected from operas and oratorios, as well as instrumental music, of authors like Traetta, Galuppi, Lots, Conti, Manna, Arrigoni or the famous Antonio Vivaldi.
Artemandoline, in a heads-up with the soprano Nuria Rial - who participates in six of the 17 pieces of the disc–, has already obtained excellent evaluations of this work, such as the ACTUAL OPERA Selection label granted by the Spanish magazine specialized in vocal music and which highlights both the virtuosity of the singer and the ensemble. Rial, with a brilliant international career, is a renowned specialist in the repertoire and has more than 15 years rubbing shoulders with the best directors and ensembles of the international baroque, in addition to having developed a prolific recording career. The exquisite musical proposal of Venice’s Fragrance is having a great acceptance on the Central European circuit by offering itself in concert, evenings that usually end with the audience standing applauding this surprising repertoire. The album will be presented soon with performances at the Bern Zentrum Paul Klee and at festivals such as Münster Barock, Mainz Music Summer o el 1001 Limoges nights. “It is a music that seduces with its spirit and its perfect balance of virtuosity, fervor, theatricality and wealth, stamps in which the mandolin has a privileged place”, Juan Carlos Muñoz affirms regarding the content of Venice’s Fragrance, while Mari Fe Pavón assures that the pieces reflect "the character of the Italian baroque, in which celebrations abounded, the fireworks, the masks, the magnificence, etc.; our ambition is clear: through the live concerts and the album, we try to extract from these unique pieces the emotion, humanity and modernity capable of seducing today's public”. For both Spanish musicians living in Luxembourg, the music known as “old” does not belong only to the past nor is it an exclusive treasure for a privileged and erudite elite, “since it has a timeless and universal value that finds its place today; it is up to all of us to get this idea to the public”, concludes Juan Carlos Muñoz. Nuria Rial, winner of several awards in central europe for her discography, collaborates with Artemandoline again on this new CD after the excellent reception they obtained in their previous joint work, Sosopiri of lovers (2015).