NICOLA PORPORA (1686-1768)
Cantatas for the Prince of Wales
Opus 1. London, 1735

CD I

1-4 Cantata X: O se fosse il mio core
5-7 Cantata V: Scrivo in te l’amato nome
8-11 Cantata VIII: Or che una nube ingrata
12-15 Cantata III: Tirsi chiamare a nome
16-19 Cantata IX: Destatevi, oh pastori
20-22 Cantata VI:Già la notte s’avvicina

CD II
1-4 Cantata XI: Oh dio, che non è vero
5-8 Cantata IV: Queste che miri, oh Nice
9-12 Cantata VII: Veggo la selva e il monte
13-15 Cantata II: Nel mio sonno almen talora
16-18 Cantata I: D’amore il primo dardo
19-22 Cantata XII: Dal povero mio cor

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About this album

Nicola Porpora’s Op 1 set of Italian chamber cantatas receive a new and striking reading directed by Stefano Aresi, a leading interpreter of the Late Baroque composer. Neapolitan-born Porpora brought his nuove musiche with him in the early 1730s when he had set out for London (with his pupil Farinelli) to take advantage of the perceived wavering of Handel’s operatic fame there. Porpora, espying an opportunity there just as Handel himself had done before, quickly ingratiated himself with the nobility in Britain and his 12 cantatas, though probably written in Naples, were published under the patronage of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales of Great Britain. They enjoyed substantial success at the time, and reflecting the primacy of Italian music across Europe, not least through Porpora’s masterly settings of Pietro Metastasio’s texts extolling Arcadian tastes and ideals.

These dozen works are shared between four singers from Stile Galante – Francesca Cassinari and Emanuela Galli, sopranos, Giuseppina Bridelli and Marina De Liso, contraltos – who have developed their interpretations, including the use of contemporaneous embellishments (such as strascino and cercar della nota), with Stefano Aresi. In addition to directing the project, Aresi contributes a stimulating booklet essay for this new Glossa L’amato nome release which will do much for the cause of modern-day historical reinterpretation of Porpora’s chamber vocal music.