Ford v Ferrari Icerbox

Sacred Cantatas Naxos' Eighteenth Century Classics series treats listeners to a couple of samplings from a genre in which Giovanni Battista Sammartini, "father of the symphony," was involved to a largely unknown extent, the sacred cantata. Both of these works come from 1751, which must have been a very sad year indeed for this composer, as they are Maria Addolorata (The Sorrowing Mary) and Il pianto di San Pietro (The Tears of Saint Peter). These works have been edited for publication by musicologist Daniele Ferrari, and are recorded here with Ferrari himself conducting.

Sammartini had a long and active musical career, working as maestro di cappella or organist in as many as ten different churches, yet surprisingly few of his sacred compositions survive. In the sacred cantata Gerusalemme sconoscente ingrata, set to a text from another of his cantatas, La perfidia giudaica nella SS. Passione di Gesù Cristo, vocal texture is dominated by a typically Italianate melodiousness and virtuosity, while the orchestral writing is full of daring harmonies, sparkling themes, and an inexhaustible wealth of ideas.

"Countertenor Franco Fagioli, an exceptional singer with an even rarer modesty, was equal to the challenge of Handel's music in all its facets – the breakneck coloratura, which he is able to propel powerfully and effortlessly in the highest range, but also the profound melancholy of 'Scherza, infida,' for which he knows how to enshroud his voice in the hues of sorrow." This is what the periodical Opernwelt wrote in the spring of 2010 about the Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli, who sang the title role in Handel's "Ariodante" at the Badische Staatstheater in Karlsruhe.

We don’t know much about Carlo Sturla, not even the dates of his birth and death, and he is absent from Google – quite an achievement! The sole reference to him is in the register of the Convent of Santa Brigida belonging to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Sturla worked here, but apparently his assiduous attendance upon and training of the young women under his tutelage was viewed with some suspicion.