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Featured
on:
Perle del Barocco
cdc 008
Perle/Paganini cdc 008/009
Real Audio:
La Pazzia
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Francesco
Durante (born in Frattamaggiore 31 March 1684, died
in Naples 30 September 1755) was a composer and famous
teacher who occupied a position of the very greatest
importance in the musical life of Naples. At the time
this was a city which in musical terms was a vital
point of reference for the whole of Eurospe. Together
with Alessandro Scarlatti,
Durante is considered one of the founding fathers
of the Neapolitan school.
This
composer for the most part was a teacher at the conservatories
of Sant’Onofrio, dei Poveri di Gesu Cristo, and S.
Maria di Loreto. A generation of other composers of
exceptional talent working in the field of Neapolitan
melodrama would come to form a distinct Durante school.
Amongst them we find Pergolesi,
Paisiello, Piccinni, Jommelli, Guglielmi, and Sacchini.
Despite this distinguished lineage, Durante himself
wrote almost nothing for the theatre. |
His musical works were largely religious compositions, harpsichord
music, and quartet concertos. His was a music of extreme
purity, great freedom of melodic invention, and highly developed
imagination.
"La
Pazzia", in Perle del Barocco (cdc
008), is a very special work of great significance
in the history of music. In this piece Durante manifests
all his different states of mind and emotion. It is extremely
difficult in structure and organisation but elaborated in
rather simple form. In arranging this piece Malipiero has
respected the approach of the composer in the emphasis on
the special role of repeated changes in mood and sound.
This composition is an example of that "musical extravagance"
which was in vogue during the seventeenth century and present
at the beginning of the eighteenth. This is a first recording
which is based upon a manuscript discovered by Maestro Prencipe
over thirty-five years ago.
© P&P - Promozione e Produzione, Rome.
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