See Naples And Make Music

The chamber music of 17th and 18th century Naples is an area of early music where research is only beginning to unearth items of quality and interest. The ensemble Accordone, led jointly by the inimitable voice of Marco Beasley and by harpsichordist Guido Morini, are mining this field and do so to great effect on this disk entitled Il Settecento Napoletano. The ensemble is completed by violin, cello, archlute, guitar and theorbo. The seven works featured here consist of five chamber cantatas featuring Beasley and two instrumental sonatas, one for two violins and continuo by Matteis and another for three violins and continuo by Ragazzi. As can be gathered, these are hardly household names, composers of the cantatas include Porsile, Rubino and Liguori with the only well known name being Alessandro Scarlatti. Guido Morini himself also contributes a song cycle which is a pastiche of the Neopolitan style. The Liguori piece is a charming Nativity song but the other four vocal pieces all tell of the treachery and perfidy of love as well as the joys. They are not profound texts, more playful and in the form of court entertainment. The sonatas are charming baroque settings and the whole disk has a feelgood factor supplementing superb musicianship.