Orchestra: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Claudio Abbado
Composer: Gustav Mahler

Soprano Suzie LeBlanc has been among the younger faces that have stimulated the vibrant early music scene in Montreal and in Canada in general. She has a light voice, refreshingly attuned to the natural strain in music of the eighteenth century rather than to its athletic feats. Accounts of LeBlanc's early life specify her point of origin as Acadia, perhaps suggesting a rejection of the Anglo geographical entity of New Brunswick in which most of Canada's Atlantic Francophone community lives. She had both vocal talent and drive but was never particularly nurtured in terms of training even though her mother was a voice teacher. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide.

For their second collection of Vivaldi’s sacred vocal music, Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante are joined by the outstanding Italian soprano Patrizia Ciofi in three colourful motets and a large-scale setting of Psalm 112, “Laudate pueri Dominum”. The motets follow a specific pattern, with two arias, differing in mood and style, separated by a short recitative and completed by a fast, exultant Alleluia, demanding a brilliant and technically assured soloist; here RV 626, in particular, has an expressive power that recalls Vivaldi’s finest operatic music. The vigorous early setting of Laudate pueri was probably written for one of Vivaldi’s talented young pupils at the Ospedale della Pietà.