Ensemble

Founded in 2000 by the harpsichordist, organist and conductor Matteo Messori, the ensemble Cappella Augustana - composed of excellent European historically-informed singers and instrumentalists - focuses on the relationships between the Italian and Northern European music from the late Renaissance, through the Baroque era up to the Romantic Period.

Cappella Augustana's variety of concert programs are performed after the most recent and innovative studies which investigate the number of singers and players employed by the early composers for their performances. The ensemble has performed vocal and instrumental works by Bach (Cantatas, Concertos, Motets, Christmas Oratorio, Musical Offering etc.), Händel, Schütz and many others, at major music festivals in Italy, France, Germany, Russia (in a concert at the Great Hall of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia) and Poland. Among other projects, Cappella Augustana under Matteo Messori carried out the first Italian stage performance of the the oratorio La Bellezza Ravveduta by Händel, highly appraised by the national and international critics (such as the magazine OperaNow).

In 2000 the studies on the music of the Court Chapel in Dresden carried Cappella Augustana to record the first CD entirely dedicated to the sacred music of the Roman composer Vincenzo Albrici (1631-1696), Carissimi's pupil and electoral Kapellmeister of Dresden after Schütz.

The ensemble became broadly renowned thanks to the highly successful Heinrich Schütz Edition by Brilliant Classics consisting of 19 CDs (published in four volumes between 2003 and 2009, and recently reissued in a unique box-set) with the major works of the celebrated German composer. The project has gained recognition among the international critics (Classica-Repertoire, Diapason, FonoForum, American Record Guide, Fanfare, Amadeus, Stereo, Scherzo, Musica, etc).

Particularly successful the recent CD release of the Musical Offering by Bach, published in a 3CD-box with the solistic Art of Fugue and Canonical Variations.

 

Matteo Messori

Hailed in November 2011 by the German magazine FonoForum as "entering into the Champions League of the international Bach interpreters", Matteo Messori was born in Bologna where he studied Organ and Counterpoint, graduating cum laude. He studied Harpsichord with Sergio Vartolo at the Conservatories of Mantua and Venice, graduating again cum laude. In addition, he studied Musicology at the University of his native city.

He is active as both a harpsichord, organ and clavichord soloist and continuo player in Italy, Europe and America. He regularly conducts orchestras and ensembles in Europe (a.o. Capella Cracoviensis, State Chamber Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus).

Recently he has performed as harpsichord soloist and conductor at the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonia where he gave also a Bach organ recital. As harpsichordist he has performed with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Daniel Harding at the Vienna Konzerthaus.

He has recorded the third part of the Clavierübung by Johann Sebastian Bach ("5 de Diapason", March 2008), the Schübler Chorales, eight great Preludes and Fugues and the Canonical Variations on five historical central German organs. Matteo has also recorded the Art of Fugue, the Musical Offering and the fragmentary Triple Fugue BWV 1080/19 by J. S. Bach, as a soloist on several harpsichords.. Forthcoming the complete harpsichord and organ works by Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Johann Caspar Kerll, and as a clavichordist the Inventions & Sinfoniae by Bach.

In the Bach-Jahrbuch 2010 he has published a study on the 16' harpsichord with pedal harpsichord built by Zacharias Hildebrandt for the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.

He teaches organ at the Genoa conservatory and harpsichord at the Bergamo Conservatory.