The strategy of the Dutch label Brilliant seems to be able to issue a large amount of material at a low price; quality, to paraphrase an old Ford Motor advertising campaign, is not job one. The label often issues music not easily available elsewhere, which is all to the good. Johann Adolf Hasse, a composer of the middle 18th century whom Mozart placed on a level with Handel, is a prime candidate for this kind of thing, and the small cantatas and trio sonatas heard here are almost unknown. Hasse was born in northern Germany (Italians called him il caro Sassone, the dear Saxon), but for all intents and purposes he took Italian nationality. The high point of his career came when he worked at the Dresden court, but these pieces date from early in his career in Naples, where he studied with Alessandro Scarlatti. The vocal pieces are quite different from the operatic arias by Hasse that listeners may have heard, and they provide an interesting take on the progressive Italian movements of the second quarter of the century. Hasse was no Pergolesi at this point, but the sunny mood of these cantatas, which are free of high-powered vocal display, would have commended them to any lover of the new styles. The trio sonatas, specified for flutes but playable on other instruments, are closer to Vivaldi. Sample the aria "Ne' sguardi miei languenti" (In my languishing glances) for both the good news -- Hasse's part-writing here, with the voice and instrumental lines both contributing to a sensuous mood reminiscent of the outdoor scenes in the French artwork of the period --- and the bad news. The latter resides in indistinct, hollow sound and a lumbering quality that takes a lot of the fun out of the music. Soprano Lia Serafini and contralto
Gabriella Martellacci do their best, but can't really connect under these circumstances. The whole thing reminds one a bit of the very earliest generation of early music recordings, made by the musicologists who first brought the music to light. You're glad they did it, but you hope someone else will come along and do it better. Notes are in Italian and English, but the texts are in Italian only.