IBO & Peter Whelan - The Trials of Tenducci - The Journal of Music

The Trials of Tenducci: A Castrato in Ireland, released on Linn Records, is the new album from the Irish Baroque Orchestra conducted by Peter Whelan and featuring mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught. All of the works are connected with the renowned eighteenth-century Italian castrato Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci (c. 1735–90) who spent a significant amount of time in Ireland. The ‘trials’ refer to his eventful life, including jail sentences and a secret marriage to a fifteen-year-old singer Dorothoea Maunsell. Tenducci was a friend of Johann Christian Bach and Mozart and came to prominence due to his performances in Thomas Arne’s opera Artaxerxes; two of the arias are sung by Erraught on the album. It also features a symphony by Belgian violinist Pierre (Peter) van Maldere (1729–68), who also lived and performed in Dublin. Following Welcome home, Mr Dubourg (2019) and the ‘Irish State Musik’ project (2017), The Trials of Tenducci continues Whelan’s work in bringing to light less well known work from the eighteenth century and in particular music in Ireland at that time.