With his London album for Glossa, Florentine countertenor Filippo Mineccia has constructed a compelling survey of arias written for the European stage by the colorful and much-travelled Attilio Ariosti. Mineccia has quickly become one of the exciting young talents revelling in the vocal demands called for from opera seria, whether in live performance - he has been much in demand for roles in Handel; or on record - he appeared as Tamerlano on the recent Gasparini Bajazet on Glossa release and has also recorded with the likes of Antonio Florio and Alan Curtis. For a composer who has received little attention on record, Ariosti was remarkably successful in his own time: whether as a composer, a performer or a diplomat (and he was a monk too) he was sought after in the courts of Mantua, Berlin, Vienna and Paris before he made his way to London in 1716. There he wrote for singers such as Senesino and Cuzzoni and went on to become one of the three leading composers at the Royal Academy alongside Handel and Giovanni Bononcini.Filippo Mineccia's recital includes arias written for divos such as Senesino taken from drammi per musica - such as the highly successful Caio Marzio Coriolano, Vespasiano and Tito Manlio which are strongly represented on this recording. Although formed as recently as 2010 Andrea Friggi's Ensemble Odyssee has also quickly established itself with it's dynamic interpretations of Italian music from across the eighteenth century. Friggi also provides us, in the booklet essay, with an insight into the chequered life and compositional variety of Attilio Ariosti.