Francesco Durante, a leading composer of 18th-century Neapolitan church music, cultivated exclusively sacred and instrumental music throughout his long career, unlike many contemporaries who focused on opera.
Composition History
The sacred vocal works by Francesco Durante on this album are a premiere contemporary performance of repertoire preserved in the only existing manuscript in the Library of the Conservatory 'Giuseppe Verdi' in Milan.
Compositional Technique
Durante's compositional choices are characterized by a profound interaction between the semantic meaning of the word and the adherence of the melodic line, exploiting melodic, thematic, and harmonic elements for expressive purposes.
Historical Context
This album offers a rare opportunity to hear music from 18th-century Naples, which was considered one of the most active and fertile artistic musical centers in Italy and Europe.
Critical Reception
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an influential figure in the international cultural scene, praised Francesco Durante as 'the greatest master of harmony in Italy, that is to say, of the whole world'.
Instruments
The organ works by Giovanni Salvatore on this album were recorded on an organ built by Graziadio Antegnati in 1565, located in the Palatine Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Francesco Durante's style, described by Niccolò Jommelli as 'a style proper to the church, and modern,' aimed to make the devotional word 'vibrate semantically from within' through musical images.
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