La Cetra celebrates its 25th anniversary

“Supported by the soloists Miriam Feuersinger (soprano I), Hana Blažíková (soprano II), Carlos Mena (alto), Jakob Pilgrim (tenor) and Tobias Berndt (bass), the result is a lively, vibrant, musically pulsating and spiritually profound recording.”

“But all the more so because Marcon and his team succeed in performing this instrumentally and vocally demanding mass (every chorister can “sing a song about it”) with a naturalness, intimacy and lightness that encompasses sacred introspection and tonally pleasurable opulence in equal measure. You get the feeling that the La Cetra people, for whom Bach's B minor Mass has, according to Marcon, “increasingly become a kind of identity-forming work”, can do this in their sleep. Perhaps that's why the recording has become so fantastically beautiful.”

(Online Merker, 15.10.2024, Dr. Ingobert Waltenberger)

 

“Andrea Marcon, the Treviso-born conductor, gathers a comparatively small group of musicians around him and offers an extremely agile, sometimes downright playful, but always deeply emotional interpretation.”

“Based on the research of Michael Radulescu, who died in 2023, among others, but also drawing on studies from the 1920s, Andrea Marcon opts for a completely different practice: he presents a much denser alternation between individual voices and the choir.
individual voices and the choir, with the soloists also singing in the (24-part) tutti.”

“Of course, the question of whether it makes sense to make another recording is superfluous when this one seems so successful all round.”

(Ö1, 15.10.2024, Albert Hosp)

 

“At the Basel performance with the La Cetra Barockorchester together with the Vokalensemble Basel under the direction of Andrea Marcon, one could once again experience first-class singers who are associated with La Cetra. The seven soloists shone with wonderful voices. Countertenor Valer Sabadus as Apollo, soprano Robin Johannsen as Clio, countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim as Orfeo, bass José Antonio López as Marte, alto Benedetta Mazzucato as Cloride, soprano Jenny Högström as Calliope and alto Francesca Ascioti as Euterpe.”

“Together with the fantastic La Cetra Barockorchester & Vokalensembe Basel under the direction of Andrea Marcon, who performed at the highest level, the result was a festive performance that did justice to the anniversary.”

(Das Opernmagazin, 24.10.2024, Marco Stücklin)