The reputation of 'San Giovanni Battista', by far Alessandro Stradella’s best-known and most recorded work, has so far overshadowed the rest of his surviving oratorio output, amounting to a total of six works. Unlike the most representative masterwork, San Giovanni Crisostomo, here released for the first time, was conceived for more intimate resources and yet perfectly expresses the modernity of the oratorio genre as it appeared in the second half of the 17th century. Sacred and moral themes are combined with political, social, and sometimes erotic ones, and the subject, libretto and music interact on multiple levels with surprising boldness and freedom.

Stradella masterfully presents the eternal conflict between lust for power and the vanity of life through a wide variety of expressive solutions and the refined dramatic and psychological characterization of the two protagonists, Saint John Chrysostom and Eudosia.