Extraordinary concert

early music, extraordinary concert — Il Pomo d'Oro conducted by Max Volbers with Jakub Józef Orliński with music by Giovanni Alberto Ristori.

Il Pomo d'Oro, photo by Grzesiek Mart

An international career, great European politics, court intrigues — it is high time to bring Giovanni Alberto Ristori out of oblivion. His parents were musicians and actors, so the fate of the young composer seemed almost predetermined - but talent and luck were still needed. His youthful opera Orlando furioso was so successful in Venice that Antonio Vivaldi could not pass by it indifferently and soon prepared his own version of the story about the mad paladin.
When fate brought Ristori to the Polish-Saxon court in Dresden, he was appointed “composer of Italian music” and director of the cappella polacca — the band that entertained Augustus II and Augustus III during their stays in Warsaw. On the occasion of one of them, he presented a “royal serenade”, in which he showed an illustrative sense, creating musical portraits of the Volcano, Fame, Peace and Oblivion. Soon after, he presented a similar diplomatic and propaganda piece in Warsaw on the occasion of the anniversary of the coronation of Tsarina Anna Ivanovna, who supported Augustus III in the struggle for the Polish succession.
The composer was associated with musically talented women: Maria Amalia, Queen of Naples, and Princess Maria Antonia Walpurgis. The latter wrote the words of his cantata Didone abbandonata, a story about the tragically abandoned queen of Carthage. While in Naples, where he starred in the stellar cast of the operas Temistocle and Adriano in Siria, Ristori spied on behalf of the Saxon court. As the Queen's music teacher, he had access to her surroundings and regularly sent encrypted reports (sometimes intercepted) of court and political intrigues.
The music of this now forgotten composer will be brought out of the darkness of history by Jakub Józef Orliński and the excellent ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro under the direction of Max Volbers.

Bartłomiej Gembicki