Le Tre Soprano is an intriguing album based on the careers of the Three Ladies of Ferrara; three virtuosi who served as Ladies in Waiting to the young Duchess of Ferrara in the late 16th century and became sufficiently renowned as musicians that Tasso wrote poems about them and Monteverdi, Strossi and others wrote music for them.

The music on the album is all from that period, so it often sounds surprisingly “modern”..  It’s quite varied musically and very well performed by three excellent singers; sopranos Amanda Forsythe and Amanda Powell and mezzo Amanda Crider along with members of the American period ensemble Apollo’s Fire and their leader Jeannette Sorrell who is also responsible for the arrangements.  The band consists of Francisco Fullana and Emi Tanabe – violin, Andrew Fouts –  violin and viola, René Schiffer – cello, William Simms and Brian Kay – archlute, theorbo, and guitar, Parker Ramsay – baroque triple harp and Anthony Taddeo – percussion with Sorrell on keyboards.

Some of the music is very lively with dance and folk elements like the satirical Passacaglia della Vita attributed to Stefan Landi with it’s repeated refrain of “bisogna morire” arranged here for all three singers.  Some of the music is very complex rhythmically and demands a high level of improvisatory ornamentation.  A good example would be Benedetto Ferrari’s “Amanti, io so vi dire” sung here by Ms. Forsythe.  There’s also plenty of instrumental music for various combinations of instruments and some of it is quite lovely.  All in all there’s a good hour of varied and enjoyable music.

The recording was made in November 2020 in First Baptist Church in Cleveland and I was struck straightaway by the very solid and clean, almost 3D soundscape.  Now this was on a 96kHz/24bit digital version so whether the physical CD will sound quite so vivid I can’t say.  It comes with an excellent booklet with full texts and lots of information about the three ladies, the music on the album and the performers.

The album is being released on February 7th and at this point I don’t have format information.

Catalogue information: Avie Records AV2544