Amanda Forsythe, Dorothee Mields, Cecilia Duarte, Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, Paul O’Dette, Stephen Stubbs, Maxine Eilander - The Three Sopranos: Earthly Delights for Angelic Voices (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Folle cor (Breve è la vita nostra)
02. Mio core languisce
03. Speranza al tuo pallore
04. Luci care, amate stelle
05. Disperate speranze
06. Amanti piangete
07. Ai sospiri, al dolore
08. Passacaglia per la arpa
09. Anima peccatrice
10. Occhi belli
11. Gelosia
12. Le Tre Madri
13. Io ritorno dal periglio
14. Fan battaglia
15. Passacalli della vita

"Earthly Delights for Angelic Voices" is the promise of the latest recording from the Boston Early Music Festival, and the performers alone suggest that the title was chosen for good reason. Amanda Forsythe, recently honored with a Grammy for her performance in Telemann's Ino, joins fellow singers Dorothee Mields (soprano) and Cecilia Duarte (mezzo-soprano) in bringing back to life a legendary trio that, almost exactly four hundred years ago in the Eternal City of Rome, filled the city's most distinguished connoisseurs with heavenly delight: Le Canterine Romane—Andreana, Leonora, and Caterina Basile, the celebrated "Roman Singers." It was for these three that the crème de la crème of composers—including Luigi Rossi, Domenico Mazzocchi, and Marco Marazzoli—wrote their music, and anyone fortunate enough to hear Mother Basile and her two daughters perform together never forgot the experience. "This concert filled me with such rapture that I forgot my mortal frame and imagined myself among the angels," wrote a French visitor in 1639. One wonders whether he wouldn't have liked to take a recording of the occasion home with him?