related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring:
voc 2ob/vl vla/lute vc/db org/cemb
Lovers and Madmen : for soprano and ensemble / Robert Groslot
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring:
sop fl ob hrp 2vl vla vc cb
Le gibet : for baritone, instruments and live-electronic / words by Aloysius Bertrand, Will Eisma
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and instrument(s); Multimedia and singing voice(s) with or without instrument(s)
Scoring:
bar fl(pic) ob(eh) cl(cl-b) perc pf vl vc electronics
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and instrument(s)
Scoring:
sopr-m fl ob pf
composition
Il Martirio di Santa Caterina : Oratorio for 5 voices and ensemble / Antonio Caldara, with libretto by Francesco Accolti; transcribed and edited by Cees Wagemakers
Author(s):
Wagemakers, Cees
(Editor)
Caldara, Antonio
(Composer)
Description:
Together with George Friderick Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti, one of the most prolific composers in the baroque period is Antonio Caldara (1670-1736). "Il Martirio di Santa Caterina" (1708), an oratorio written in the time that oratorios were more popular than operas in Rome because of the papal ban on operas being performed
during Lent. Operas were called ‘immoral’. That’s why several operas by Scarlatti and Caldara were called proibita (forbidden).
Like more often in cases like these composers found an escape for their inspiration and artistry in composing a religious work with the same dramatic style as an opera. Though unstaged these oratorios were performed in richly decorated settings with large orchestras
and highly-paid singers.
Caldara composed many operas and oratorios, from which the best-known are: "Maddalana ai piedi di Cristo", "Santa Francesca Romana", "La Conversione di Clodevedo Re di Francia", "Morte e
Sepultura di Cristo".
For "Il Martirio di Santa Caterina" Caldara got the commission from Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. The libretto was written by Francesco Forzoni Accolti (1674-1708).