Cervoni

L’Empio Punito is a dramma per musica in three acts composed by Alessandro Melani, on a libretto by Giovanni Filippo Apolloni, based on Filippo Acciaiuoli’s adaptation of El burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de piedra (1616) by Tirso da Molina. It was premiered in 1669 and this release features the first performance in modern times that took place at Teatro di Villa Torlonia in Rome in October 2019, 350 years after its debut. Acrimante, the male protagonist of l’Empio Punito, can be considered the first Don Giovanni in the history of opera. His seductive power brings chaos and pain in the lives of the other characters but a lot of energy as well. Although Melani was at the beginning of his career as an operatic composer – he wrote mainly sacred music – in L’empio punito he proves to be very skilful in alternating lyrical moments and pure recitative, and in introducing at the right moment dramatic recitatives that interrupt the course of the arias.

The indefatigable Antonio Florio, along with his associates from Cappella Neapolitana, has succeeded, with a work by Donato Ricchezza, in unearthing another major rediscovery from the Neapolitan Baroque. The labours of Florio – coupled with the ability to turn dry notes on a dusty manuscript into a sumptuous audio feast – can be no better demonstrated than with this release on Glossa of Los Santos Niños: “Oratorio di San Giusto e San Pastore”, written by a composer who was a pupil of the great Francesco Provenzale.

The disc under review here is the fourth in a series, called ‘The Stradella Project’. I don't know which parts of Stradella's oeuvre will be included in this project. He was a prolific composer, and his extant output comprises music for the stage, liturgical and non-liturgical sacred music, madrigals and cantatas. It also includes six oratorios, and two of them were the subject of volumes 2 and 3. I am sure that the two best-known oratorios, San Giovanni Battista and Susanna, will be recorded at a later stage. As these are available in several performances, it was a good idea to start with those oratorios which are seldom performed. That also goes for Santa Pelagia.

The importance of the musician Bernardo Pasquini is well known to all those who dedicate themselves to the study of the harpsichord or organ. They frequently encounter his compositions, which are of such fundamental importance for the development of late-baroque Italian music for keyboard instruments. His vocal music, on the other hand, consisting primarily of cantatas, operas and oratorios, is far less known. But it includes true gems of vocal art from the late Roman Seicento.

The indefatigable Antonio Florio, along with his associates from Cappella Neapolitana, has succeeded, with a work by Donato Ricchezza, in unearthing another major rediscovery from the Neapolitan Baroque. The labours of Florio – coupled with the ability to turn dry notes on a dusty manuscript into a sumptuous audio feast – can be no better demonstrated than with this release on Glossa of Los Santos Niños: “Oratorio di San Giusto e San Pastore”, written by a composer who was a pupil of the great Francesco Provenzale.