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April 5, 1999
Contact: Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940

Harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini to Perform at Library of Congress

On Thursday, April 8, at 8 p.m., harpsichordist and conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini performs a recital dedicated to rarely-heard Italian works from the 16th and 17th centuries. Composers featured on the program will include Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Picchi, Tarquinio Merula, Andrea Gabrieli, Bernardo Storace, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Michelango Rossi.

Presented under the auspices of the Mae and Irving Jurow Fund in the Library of Congress, with generous support from the Italian Cultural Institute, the recital is Mr. Alessandrini's only U.S. appearance for the 1998-99 season.

Tickets for the Coolidge Auditorium concert are available through TicketMaster, (301) 808-6900, for a nominal service charge, or by calling the Library of Congress Music Division, (202) 707-5503. The Coolidge Auditorium is located in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, First Street and Independence Avenue S.E.

Admired internationally for his interpretations of Baroque music, Rinaldo Alessandrini has won distinguished prizes for his recordings of madrigals by Monteverdi, Marenzio, and Frescobaldi, including the Grand Prix de la Nouvelle Academie du Disque, the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, the Choc de la Musique, Diapason d'or, the Gramophone Editor's Choice, the BBC Music Magazine Prize, and the Premio Vivaldi della Fondazioni Cini.

Born in Rome in 1960, the artist has toured throughout Europe, Japan, Canada, and Israel, as a soloist and as the conductor of his acclaimed ensemble, Concerto Italiano, noted for its superb performances of the madrigals of Monteverdi and Marenzio.

In his program notes for the April 8 recital, Alessandrini writes, "Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the music you hear tonight comes from the most brilliant and the most glorious period in the history of keyboard music in Italy." He characterizes the program as a "journey through a wide variety of musical landscapes," in which the listener will observe the differences between the intellectual severity of the Northern School and the astonishing luminosity of the Southern School."

Alessandrini seeks to reproduce what he describes as "the essential, but often elusive, expressive and cantabile elements so fundamental to Italian music" of the period, for him "the most fertile and innovative in all Italian music." His solo recordings include two volumes of Italian keyboard music titled One Hundred Fifty Years of Italian Music (1550-1700); Volume One contains music for the harpsichord; Volume Two, music for the organ. His recording with Concerto Italiano of J.S. Bach's harpsichord concertos (BWV 1052, 1054, 1057, and 104) received a Gramophone Award nomination in 1998.

For information, call the Library of Congress Concert Line, at (202) 707-5502.

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PR 99-044
3/5/99
ISSN 0731-3527