Nicola Antonio Porpora (1686-1768)
Salve Regina en sol majeur

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736)
Salve Regina en sol mineur

Leonardo Leo (1694-1744)
Salve Regina en do mineur
Salve Regina en fa majeur

Federica Napoletani, soprano
Ensemble Imaginaire

Gian Andrea Guerra, violon I
Paolo Costanzo, violon II
Zeno Scattolin, alto
Nicola Brovelli, violoncelle
Carlo Sgarro, contrebasse
Gianluca Rovelli, orgue, clavecin

Cristina Corrieri, direction

Dans l’Italie du XVIIIe siècle, Vivaldi n’est pas le seul à avoir composé de splendides Salve Regina : c’est ce que démontre le présent disque. Le premier des auteurs napolitains enregistrés ici, Nicola Porpora, tenta en vain d’obtenir la place de maître de chapelle de Saint-Marc de Venise. Très vivaldien d’esprit, son Salve Regina débute magnifiquement sur une longue note tenue et se poursuit avec grâce (notamment dans l’émouvant Ad te suspiramus). Le second compositeur, Pergolesi, n’est plus à présenter : son Salve Regina, sans atteindre au génie de son fameux Stabat Mater, est d’une grande pureté. Le troisième auteur, plus méconnu, Leonardo Leo, fut organiste puis maître de chapelle de la chapelle royale. On lui doit deux Salve Regina, le premier en Ut mineur, est particulièrement expressif ; et le second, en Fa majeur, atteint un sommet sur le mot lacrymarum accompagné de violons à contretemps figurant les soupirs du pécheur. L’interprétation est à la hauteur, que ce soit celle de la soprano F. Napoletani au timbre agréable, ou du bel ensemble à cordes dirigé par C. Corrieri. S’il n’est pas recommandé d’écouter ces quatre Salve Regina d’affilée, les écouter isolément procure l’extase. (Jean-Paul Lécot)

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.