Mantra Del Bicho Feo

Fabio Biondi’s immense curiosity for characterful music – especially of forgotten scores from the Baroque – yields another fabulous surprise with Francesco Feo’s oratorio San Francesco di Sales. Feo’s reputation is at last starting to wax after having waned dramatically in the nineteenth century and thenceforward: in his own age he was compared very highly with Bach and Handel, and Charles Burney was moved to describe his vocal music as being “full of fire and invention and force in the melody and expression of the words”; Feo was also a boon companion of Pergolesi.

Manifold Records present Best of Del Mar Vol. 3 - 50 Beautiful Chill Sounds. 50 excellent Chillout tracks and a continuous mix with mixing duties handled by DJ Maretimo.

Manifold Records present Best of Del Mar, Vol. 6 - 50 Beautiful Chill Sounds. 50 excellent Chillout tracks and a continuous mix with mixing duties handled by DJ Maretimo.

Francesco Feo was one of the greatest Neapolitan composers of the first half of the 18th century. During a career extending from 1713 through 1760, the year before his death, he remained in Naples, where he composed operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, passions, psalms, and canticles, among other works. His setting of Metastasio’s first opera libretto, Siface, led to commissions from Rome and Turin. His growing fame resulted in commissions from Madrid and Prague; Hasse, resident in Dresden, where Feo’s works were also performed, wanted to entrust Feo with leading the premiere of a serenata he wrote for Naples. The music historian Charles Burney praised his works for their “fire, invention, and force in the melody and expression in the words.”

St John’s Passion is a newly discovered masterpiece of the Italian baroque. The autograph manuscript is in the Biblioteca dei Filippini in Naples. The Evangelist is a countertenor and Jesus and Pilate are tenors. The choir is the crowd and the accompaniment is a string quartet. An Italian harpsichord and an organo di legno have been used for the basso continuo and they are joined by a harp.

The premier purveyors of Ibiza comedown have selected two dozen tracks of laid-back, cozily experimental music to help celebrate their 20th anniversary, and while it at times feels ungainly, it never seems too scripted. The first disc has Amalagation of Soundz creating a rustic drum'n'bass mantra ("Enchant Me"), Moodrama mixing tribal beats with flitters of jazz (the appropriately titled "Jazz Tip"), and even Deep & Wide constructing a gorgeously subtle native twinkle along the lines of Dario G's "Voices." The other disc tends to go for the more celestial (Jean Michel Jarre, Jon & Vangelis) or the post-sunset reawakening (Foundland, Christian Alvad), but begins to sag with the drugged-out self-importance of a born-again hippy. Luckily, with so many tracks on offer, it's easy to sift out the treasures. This is a fine, calming collection of indigenous, open-door attitude.