Price: 19,80 €

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Brindisi 1694 – Naples 1744

Leo has been thoroughly forgotten since the beginning of the XXth century, however he was one among the great in Naples, along with Alessandro Scarlatti, G. Pergolese, Francesco Durante and Johann Hasse ; long forgotten, and yet, his liturgical works were still played long after his death. He was excellent in many fields : as a prolific composer of operas, both serie and buffe, a composer of liturgical music, a pedagogue (first maestro in the San Onofrio Conservatory), an instrumental performer (he succeeded Scarlatti as the first organist of the royal chapel), climbing up the various steps until he became the director of the royal chapel.

Inasmuch as Leo was an innovator in the opera musical style, he was a deliberate conservative as far as liturgical music was concerned.

His two-choir Miserere – the first track of this disk – has been compared by some authors to Allegri’s. However, his writing is much more refined and varied ; where Allegri repeats rather invariably the same composition for 15 minutes, using the upper C of the soprano for effect, Leo writes 19 minutes of non-repetitive music (no verse is repeated), in which the plainchant alternates with the first chorus, the second chorus joining in, in the final cadence, in an exuberant 8-voice composition.

The other works of this disk are mostly mature works that Leo composed as director of the royal chapel. He had just arrived when he started writing masses for the Lent of 1744, the last one in his life. On this disk pieces from the mass of the 2nd Sunday in the Lent (Reminiscere), and the mass of the Passion Sunday (Judica me) are recorded.

The interpretation, by the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is remarkably expressive and homogeneous. One feels that this choir does not solely sing notes. The text in the booklet tells many things which we would like to find in all CD booklets.
This disk is an example of the “resurrection of the repertory” style.


Content

1. Psaume Miserere mei à double chœur (19'38)
2. Canzona en sol mineur (orgue)
3. Judica me, introït du dimanche de la Passion (3'30)
4. Eripe me, Domine, graduel (2'53)
5. Hoc corpus, communio (4'03)
6. Aria: Praebe Virgo
7. Aria Te mihi dantes vires
8. All’ Offertorio - (orgue seul, Domenico Zipoli)
9. Reminiscere, introït du IIe dimanche de Carême (2'39)
10. Tribulationes, graduel (2'12)
11. Intellige clamorem, communio (3'00)
12. Canzona, en mi mineur (orgue seul, Domenico Zipoli)
13. Kyrie, de la messe en do (3'34)
14. Christus factus est (1'51)
15. Heu nos miseros (2'49)

Listening

5 extracts of the Miserere (3'31 pour apprécier l'ensemble de la pièce qui dure 19'38)


Track 3


Track 4


Track 6


Track 13


Track 15, final