Francesco Cavalli, a significant opera composer, also wrote a great deal of sacred music, serving St Mark's Basilica for 52 years, first as a singer, then organist, and finally maestro di cappella.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The album's title, 'Passions,' refers to human passions, the 'affetti' (emotions or affections in Baroque music), the Passion of Christ, and the conductor Geoffroy Jourdain's personal passion for Venetian music.
Compositional Technique
Giovanni Gabrieli's 'Exaudi me Domine' uses polychorality to create a theatrical effect, such as an 'earthquake' impression with staggered choirs, reflecting the spatial acoustics of St Mark's Basilica.
Compositional Technique
The program is structured around several settings of the 'Crucifixus,' creating a 'Way of the Cross' with instrumental interludes that enhance the emotional mood of the vocal pieces.
Interpretation
The album explores the blurred lines between sacred and secular music in 17th and 18th-century Venice, where instrumental pieces for the stage could be played in church and vice-versa.
Critical Reception
Antonio Lotti, a contemporary of Vivaldi, was unjustly ignored during his lifetime and even posthumously, with one of his works, 'La vita caduca,' being plagiarized by Giovanni Bononcini.
Compositional Technique
The opening piece, Tarquinio Merula's 'Hor ch'è tempo di dormire,' is a lullaby for the Infant Jesus that transforms into a funeral lament, featuring an insistent semitone ostinato that introduces the album's theme of chromaticism.
