Various * Naples: City of Celebrations from the 14th
to the 19th *
Art Book and 2CD * Opus
III OPS 7006 / ISBN 2-913542-03-4 *
Book: 128 pages, hardback
5 ½" by 8", full colour illustrations throughout on high quality paper,
text in English and German * [Disc 1: 79:28 / Disc 2: 79:48]
Music from the following
Opus III albums:
OPUS 2002 volumes 1 & 2, plus all the following discs prefixed by
OPS-30-007 * 88 * 90-91 * 94 * 152 * 160 * 184 * 194 * 208-9 * 210
* 211* 212-3 * 214 * 215 * 249-50 * 254 * 255 * 262 * 273 * 275-6 * 283
Music by Anon * Domenico Auletta * Cristofaro
Caresana * Giuseppe Cavallo * Fabrizio Dentice * Pietro Giordani-Giordaniello
* Giovanni Battista Grillo * Adam de la Halle * Johann Adolf Hasse * Nicolo
Jommelli * Jean de Macque * Pietro Marchitelli * Giovanni Battista Mele *
Orlando di Lasso * Gaetano Latilla * Leonardo Leo * Giovanni Battista Pergolasi
* Francesco Provenzale * Frederico Ricci * Nicola Sabatino * Giovanni Salvatore
* Alessandro Scarlatti * Tommaso Traetta * Antonio Valente * Leonardo
Vinci
Music performed by various artists, but featuring: The Academia Montis
Regalis * The Cappella de' Turchini * Micrologus * Rinaldo Alessandrini and
Concerto Italiano * Europa Galante * Le Parlement de Musique
As can been seen from the fact that this edition carries both a conventional
CD product number and an ISBN number Naples: City of Celebrations from
the 14th to the 19th, is a hybrid which presumably
can be purchased as easily though good bookshops as music stores. It looks
like a book, but feels like a music product: the text in both English and
German, giving the impression of a conventional CD booklet which has expanded
into something more ambitious without being completely re-thought. Also giving
the impression of a CD rather than book, is the fact that the author, Dinko
Fabris, is not named on the front cover, but rather, on inside on the title
page in no larger letters than the other credits, and again in the back cover
'blurb'. Nevertheless, the book is an attractive hardback copiously illustrated
with beautifully reproduced art printed on superior quality paper. The CDs
are stored in card sleeves, one inside the front cover, one inside the back.
Apart from appendices containing a track list, bibliography, discography,
and pages on the artists and author and researcher, the bulk of the book
comprises an intertwined history of the art, music and culture of Naples
between the 14th and 19th Centuries. The style is very
straightforward and unpretentious, in what, given the large number of
illustrations and the German text, is an informative extended historical
essay (Dinko Fabris is a highly respected musicologist and a leading specialist
in Neapolitan musical history), spiced with extracts from previously unpublished
travel diaries appropriate to the period under discussion. Unfortunately
texts are not provided for the songs, so unless you speak Italian you will
have to guess what is going on.
The CDs, which are as well filled as CDs can possibly be, provide a 158 minute
sampler of 39 tracks from 22 Opus III albums, though OPS 30-254, and OPS
184 are both heavily favoured, with three tracks totalling over 16 minutes
from the former, and 5 tracks totalling over 23 minutes from the latter.
The first is a programme by Jommelli and others, the second a diverse Golden
Age Opera Buffa collection. Otherwise, the music is chosen from an
extensive catalogue, such that even were you to have several of the source
CDs there would be much that is new. The book is chronological, the CDs not
quite so, though one can read the text in the time it takes to listen to
the two discs, thus keeping apace with the passing centuries. In this way
the tracks become more than a luxurious sampler, and part of a new product
which easily justifies its own place on the book or CD shelf. However, the
layout of the book is rather fragmented and confusing, with the text in columns,
intrusive patches of German (or, of course, English, should you be reading
in German), various breaks for picture captions, diary quotes and track details.
Sometimes its really not obvious where the eye should go next and this makes
what should be an enjoyable read something of a chore. I'm sure the excellent
material could somehow have been better presented.
Drawn from the cream of one of the finest specialist labels around, it can
be more or less taken for granted that the music is very well recorded and
performed to the highest standards. Representing many performers and covering
rather more than the five centuries of the title - Adam de la Halle was born
around 1240, and is the last troubadour known by name - the programme is
very wide ranging. Yet Opus III have done a very good job indeed of compiling
the various tracks to produce a sequence which much more often than not flows
naturally rather than jars. Virtually all the music is vocal, and covers
anonymous song, opera scenes and sacred writing. Inevitably there is an extract
from Pergolasi's Sabat Mater, but there is little else here that will
be familiar to anyone who does not have a particular interest in this music.
That's all to the good, because this really is a fine collection or music
which ranges from the rambunctiously playful to the sublimely beautiful.
It would be a little invidious for me to start selecting individual favourites
from 39 tracks - everything here is well worth hearing and if I got started
down that route this review might never end. Suffice to say that it is purely
personal preference that I tended to enjoy the tracks by Cappela de' Turchini
most. This set will provide hours of pleasure to anyone remotely interested
in discovering this still largely unknown repertoire, while the essay and
beautiful paintings make this an enlightening and visually rewarding treat
too. If only the book had been better designed and provided the librettos
it would score as highly as the discs.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
CDs
Book
