Salve Regina Federica Napoletani, Ensemble Imaginaire & Cristina Corrieri

• Nicola Antonio Porpora (1686 - 1768): Salve regina in G Major:
• 1 Salve regina in G Major: I. Salve regina 03:52
• 2 Salve regina in G Major: II. Ad te clamamus 01:40
• 3 Salve regina in G Major: III. Ad te suspiramus 02:47
• 4 Salve regina in G Major: IV. Eja ergo 02:26
• 5 Salve regina in G Major: V. Et Jesum benedictum 02:48
• 6 Salve regina in G Major: VI. O clemens, o pia 03:08
• Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 - 1736): Salve regina in G Minor:
• 7 Salve regina in G Minor: I. Salve regina 03:02
• 8 Salve regina in G Minor: II. Ad te clamamus 00:51
• 9 Salve regina in G Minor: III. Ad te suspiramus 03:20
• 10 Salve regina in G Minor: IV. Eja ergo 01:35
• 11 Salve regina in G Minor: V. Et Jesum benedictum 02:38
• Leonardo Leo (1694 - 1744): Salve regina in C Minor:
• 12 Salve regina in C Minor: I. Salve regina 04:15
• 13 Salve regina in C Minor: II. Ad te clamamus 00:58
• 14 Salve regina in C Minor: III. Ad te suspiramus 01:45
• 15 Salve regina in C Minor: IV. Eja ergo 03:06
• 16 Salve regina in C Minor: V. Et Jesum benedictum 02:44
• 17 Salve regina in C Minor: VI. O clemens, o pia 03:28
• Leonardo Leo: Salve regina in F Major:
• 18 Salve regina in F Major: I. Salve regina 03:46
• 19 Salve regina in F Major: II. Ad te clamamus 02:56
• 20 Salve regina in F Major: III. Ad te suspiramus 03:36
• 21 Salve regina in F Major: IV. Eja ergo 02:49
• 22 Salve regina in F Major: V. Et Jesum benedictum 00:36
• 23 Salve regina in F Major: VI. O clemens, o pia (Largo) 03:15
• Total Runtime 01:01:21

Info for Salve Regina

Four sensuous settings of the Marian antiphon by a trio of Neapolitan masters, sung with native affinity by a young Italian soprano, and including a pair of world-premiere recordings.

The four Salve Regina recordings presented on this uniquely compiled new album cross the boundary between opera house and church – a boundary that in 18th-century Naples was never very forbidding to begin with. In fact Leo, Pergolesi and Porpora are all fine examples of composers who moved with unselfconscious facility between sacred and secular genres, between old counterpoint and the Monteverdian stile concertato that caressed each word with sensuous melismas and velvet harmonies.

Porpora was a noted singing teacher of his day, intimately familiar with everything that a voice can do, and possessing a melodic skill that spins long and ornate vocal phrases of almost instrumental effect. The Salve Regina by Pergolesi presented here is in G minor, and is a different work to his much more familiar settings of the text in F major and A minor, with a grave and restrained vocal line that evokes a meditative aura far removed from Porpora’s fireworks.

Extreme versions of these contrasting tendencies also characterise the two settings by Leonardo Leo. The F major Salve Regina is bright and extrovert, only darkening for a minor-key setting of ‘Ad te suspiramus’, with an agile vocal line full of operatic flourishes. In the C minor Salve Regina, however, Leo evokes a mood of intense lamentation with a style so restrained that it would seem almost archaic were it not for the expressive harmonies not so distant from Pergolesi’s world.

Federica Napoletani studied piano and singing at the conservatoire in Parma before joining Luisa Castellani’s class for a Masters at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. She specialises in new and early music and has performed with many distinguished early-music groups including Vox Altera, Odhecaton and Ensemble Imaginaire. The album is accompanied by an illuminating booklet essay authored by the director of Ensemble Imaginaire, Cristina Corrieri.

During the period of the Baroque the city of Naples was undoubtedly the musical capital of Europe. As part of the Bourbon kingdom its reputation passed its boundaries, and musicians from all countries joined in the cultural melting pot.

Most of the Neapolitan composers were producing both instrumental and sacred music, each influencing the other. The sacred style, initially based on the counterpoints of Palestrina, imbibed elements from the Opera: dramatic musical gestures and expressive melodic arias.

This new recording presents settings of the Salve Regina, a well known Maria Hymn, by composers Nicola Porpora, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Leonardo Leo, music from the transition from Baroque to Galante Style.

Sung by soprano Federica Napoletani and the Ensemble Imaginaire, led by Cristina Corrieri.

Federica Napoletani, soprano
Ensemble Imaginaire
Cristina Corrieri, conductor

Federica Napoletani
began studying piano at a very early age and continued her training with several teachers including Silvia Limongelli, Alberto Magagni, and Giampaolo Nuti at the Conservatorio “A. Boito” in Parma where she was awarded top marks on her Diploma in Pianoforte in the summer of 2012. At the age of eighteen, she flanked her piano studies with voice and opera, studying first with Maddalena Calderoni and then with Maria Cristina Curti at the Conservatorio “A. Boito” in Parma under whose guidance she earned her Diploma in Canto Lirico in the autumn of 2012.

She broadened her knowledge of the stylistic aspects of a wide variety of vocal music, ranging from Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music to bel canto and chamber music, while studying with Alessandra Althoff, Sergio Foresti, Silvia Testoni, Barbara Zanichelli, Gabriella Ravazzi, and Carlo Napoletani. With Napoletani, modern performing and the issue of any differences that might arise between modern and more classical performances were also dealt with.She is currently working toward a Master of Arts in Music Performance at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano and attending Luisa Castellani’s vocal performance class which, in particular, delves into chamber and contemporary repertoires. In this period she has come to deeply appreciate various aspects of German chamber music and undertaken more detailed study with Daniel Fueter as well as performing, together with pianist Silvia Magagni, some of the most famous works of German chamber music. At the same time, she is passionately devoted to contemporary music, performing Arnold Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Pierre Boulez’s Improvisation sur Mallarmé at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in collaboration with Ensemble 900 del CSI and Arturo Tamayo’s class of Orchestral Conducting.

She performs regularly in Italy and Switzerland both as a soloist and in collaboration with various early music and contemporary vocal and instrumental ensembles including Alia Monodia, La Camerata Strumentale di S.Quirico, Studium Ensemble, and Odhecaton with whom she performed the music of the Spanish composer Luis de Pablo in May 2013 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid. She has been directed by Atruro Tamay, Ottavio Merino, Elena Schwarz, Paolo Da Col, and Fabrizio Tallachini. She is also committed to the teaching of voice and piano at L’Associazione Musicale “Confetture musicali” in Domodossola (VB) and at MAT in Lugano.

She has been the soprano with The Blossomed Voice since January 2013.

This album contains no booklet.