1 	Jesus Arrested: I.	3:40 	
2 	Jesus Arrested: II.	4:52 	
3 	Jesus Arrested: III.	2:39 	
4 	Peter's Denial I		1:59 	
5 	The High Priest Questions Jesus		3:39 	
6 	Peter's Denial II		1:43 	
7 	Jesus Before Pilate: I.		2:40 	
8 	Jesus Before Pilate: II.		6:36 	
9 	Jesus Before Pilate: III.		6:15 	
10 	Jesus Before Pilate: IV.		2:42 	
11 	Jesus Sentenced to Be Crucified		3:10 	
12 	The Crucifixion		5:40 	
13 	At the Cross: I.		2:16 	
14 	At the Cross: II.		1:53 	
15 	At the Cross: III.		4:04 	
16 	Jesus Dies	3:14 	
17 	Jesus Pierced by the Lance	3:55

Krystian Adam (Tenor)
Barbara Schmidt-Gaden (Mezzo Soprano)
Doron Schleifer (Countertenor) 
Mirko Guadagnini (Tenor)
Varese Chamber Chorus
La Divina Armonia (period instruments)
Lorenzo Ghielmi – conductor

Francesco Feo (1691–1761) is one of those many composers active in Naples who eschewed the limelight and preferred to remain as teachers and mentor. This in turn generally made their music, almost all written for local use, disappear into the archives with scant hope for resurrection. Feo began his career as a promising opera composer in 1713, and by 1723 he and a young librettist, Pietro Metastasio, had teamed up to begin writing opera seria . The same year he became the head instructor at the Sant’Onofrio Conservatory at the Porta Capuana, a position he maintained for a decade and a half before going on to the Poveri di Gesù Cristo Conservatory. After a few more years he tired of this and wanted to resume an international career as an opera composer. He received a number of commissions from as far away as Spain and Bohemia, but by that time he had long been overtaken by ambitious students such as Nicolò Jommelli. Thus, he remained a footnote to music history, mainly being noted for his vain attempt to get his prize pupil, Giovanni Pergolesi, to stop obsessively working and regain his health. (Pergolesi didn’t follow the advice and died at the young age of 26.)

As far as his own achievements are concerned, Feo is one of those seminal figures in the development of the Neapolitan musical style, which in turn was so influential in the formation of the music of the Classical period. He, along with colleagues such as Leonardo Vinci, Nicola Porpora, and Leonardo Leo, introduced a more lyrical, triadic, and homophonic music, where the focus was on good contrasting form and a flexible structure, as well as interesting harmony. It is a shame that so little of his music has been revived; the only other disc is a recent 2009 recording on cpo of a Mass and a motet, both of which are quite fine pieces. This production of the St. John Passion by La Divina Armonia provides a nice sequel to that initial work.

When one thinks of a Passion according to John, the most immediate forerunners that come to mind are the German works by people such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, the majority of which have a narrative portion interrupted by the usual choral expostulations and dialogue (generally Christ and other principal characters in the well-known drama), and contemplative moments with chorales and various arias. The Italian Passion s, of which the bulk remain undiscovered, are something quite different. For the most part, they are in Latin taken directly from the Vulgate, and they don’t always follow the entire story. This Passion begins with Jesus’ arrest, trial, and the denial of Peter, ending with the Crucifixion and the piercing of the side of his corpse by a soldier’s spear. The bulk of the musical material is narrative, originally probably performed by a castrato but here by countertenor Doron Schleifer, which weaves in and out of secco and accompanied recitative. There are two larger arias, one by Feo himself and another by Francesco Gasparini, that have been interpolated, though it doesn’t say whether this was conductor Lorenzo Ghielmi’s decision or whether the source actually contains them. Both do provide a nice diversion from the recitation, although I find the Gasparini quite Baroque in style, a rather stark contrast to the more modern Feo. Bit roles, mostly the dialogue, are done by tenors Krystian Adam and Mirko Guadagnini as Jesus and Pontius Pilate, respectively, though neither really has the stage for more than an expostulation or two. This music is quite different from what one might anticipate, in that the bulk of the instrumental parts, for strings only (and the inevitable continuo), are rarely used for more than background accompaniment. Feo has a good sense of outlining the text with certain brief orchestral effects. For instance, as Christ is crucified the section opens with decisive hammer strokes, like nails being pounded into the cross. As Jesus is arrested, there are various musical sighs, like the acceptance of the inevitable, along with some rather nice, pungent harmonies. This is truly dramatic mood music of the 18th-century Neapolitan sort, and very appropriate for Lent.

The performances are excellent. Schleifer gives a solid and well-nuanced account of himself, making the narrative flow smoothly and gracefully. Even the ornamentation in the opening melisma or the cascading torrents as Christ is arrested is handled with ease. Ghielmi’s small ensemble is nicely coordinated, with good phrasing and never overbearing in its short, often descriptive ritornellos. The remainder of the larger Varese chorus and the characters are also well performed, but their parts are quite limited. The disc is embedded within a thick booklet, where the text and colorful photographs of the statuary at the Church of Santa Maria del Monte in Varese abound. My only peeve is that the text itself is rather difficult to follow, as the original Latin appears in the third column, making the reader search for it. If you are French, you’re out of luck here, for you’ll have to go to the back to find your version, completely separated from the rest.

In short, this is a great disc to have if you are a fan of Italian Classical or Neapolitan music. Moreover, it is a good contrast to the plethora of German Passion s that abound in the recording world, in that it shows that the Catholics, too, had a specialized genre that they used every Lenten season. Feo’s work is solid, harmonically interesting, and in many cases quite moving. Given the fine performance by La Divina Armonia, this is a disc that is recommended. --- FANFARE: Bertil van Boer, arkivmusic.com

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CD I
PARTE PRIMA [75:11]

01 Sinfonia
02 Recitativo: Eccoci giunti al fin (Angelo, San Francesco)
03 Aria: Nel verno più severo (Angelo)
04 Recitativo: Colla celeste guida, Signor (San Francesco)
05 Aria: Queste dolanti lagrime (San Francesco)
06 Recitativo: E quai pensier funesti (Inganno, Eresia)
07 Aria: Già colla pallid’ ombra (Eresia)
08 Recitativo: E puoi temer (Inganno)
09 Aria: Questo che spirano (Inganno)
10 Recitativo: Vedi, Francesco (Angelo, San Francesco, Eresia, Inganno)
11 Aria: Deponi un tanto orgoglio (Angelo)
12 Recitativo: E tu, che fai (San Francesco)
13 Aria: Tu serbi accolto (San Francesco)
14 Recitativo: E chi sei tu (Eresia, San Francesco, Inganno)
15 Aria: Se dalla chara fonte (Eresia)
16 Recitativo: Se che gli stessi (San Francesco)
17 Aria: Tu sei la nube impura (San Francesco)
18 Recitativo: E qualia noi d’avante (San Francesco, Angelo)
19 Aria: Quando più s’alza (Angelo)
20 Recitativo, a4, Coro: Tu me paventa intanto (Inganno, Eresia, San Francesco, Angelo)

CD II
PARTE SECONDA [62:41]

01 Recitativo: Padre, ravvisi come di Francesco (Eresia, Inganno)
02 Aria: Tutte dell’Erebo (Inganno)
03 Recitativo: Se già disperi, oh Dio (Eresia, Inganno, Angelo)
04 Aria: Serbi l’ardire istesso (Angelo)
05 Recitativo: O Dio delle vendette (San Francesco)
06 Aria: Sommo Dio, dal ciel discenda (San Francesco)
07 Recitativo: Oh come lieto (Angelo, San Francesco)
08 Aria: Con la virtude istessa (Angelo)
09 Recitativo: Ch’il crederebbe mai (Inganno, San Francesco)
10 Aria: Pallid’ognora in volto (Eresia)
11 Recitativo: Empii, conosco il vostro reo (San Francesco, Eresia)
12 Aria: Intendi i sensi miei (San Francesco)
13 Recitativo: Tu colle fole tue (Inganno)
14 Aria: Come stridente fulmine (Inganno)
15 Recitativo: Quale imrovvisa luce (Eresia, Inganno, Angelo)
16 Aria: Voi dell’eterno pianto (Angelo)
17 Recitativo: Noi fuggiremo (Inganno, San Francesco)
18 Coro: Già l’Eresia (Coro)

Angelo: Monica Piccinini, soprano
Eresia: Roberta Mameli, soprano
San Francesco: Delphine Galou, alto
Inganno: Luca Tittoto, bass

Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Fabio Biondi, violin & direction

Fabio Biondi’s immense curiosity for characterful music – especially of forgotten scores from the Baroque – yields another fabulous surprise with Francesco Feo’s oratorio San Francesco di Sales. Feo’s reputation is at last starting to wax after having waned dramatically in the nineteenth century and thenceforward: in his own age he was compared very highly with Bach and Handel, and Charles Burney was moved to describe his vocal music as being “full of fire and invention and force in the melody and expression of the words”; Feo was also a boon companion of Pergolesi. He wrote both operas (such as Siface – which had a libretto by Metastasio) and church music, with compositions which demanded significant vocal virtuosity from his performers.

San Francesco di Sales: apostolo del Chablais is a set of reflections and imagery on the work of this inspirational Catholic Bishop of Geneva from the turn of the seventeenth century, and the oratorio probably saw the light of day in 1734.

This new release, further evidence of Glossa’scommitment to the music of the Neapolitan Baroque, presents Fabio Biondi directing the highly-versatile forces of the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and four of today’s brightest and most stylish voices as the oratorio’s soloists: sopranos Monica Piccinini and Roberta Mameli, contralto Delphine Galou, and bass Luca Tittoto. Ample opportunity is also provided in Feo’s score for instrumental virtuosity, and Biondi’s own abundant violinistic flair is much to the fore here. ---glossamusic.com

As late as the end of the 18th century, one writer put the Neapolitan composer Francesco Feo on a level with Bach and Handel, but, in line with the general neglect of composers from Naples (a bigger city than Rome or Venice in the middle 18th century), he is hardly known today. The Italian violinist and conductor Fabio Biondi and composer/musicologist Manuel de Roo have done a good deal of work producing a performable score of this 1734 oratorio, San Francesco di Sales, and the results are well worth checking out for lovers of the transitional late Baroque. There are several strong points here, first among them the application of the influential light Neapolitan style to a sacred subject. The effect is a bit incongruous but bright and charming, especially inasmuch as the opera does not really dramatize the life of the titular saint but rather presents him in dialogues with allegorical figures like Heresy. This works in a kind of pastoral-like way, and Feo's music, for the mid-1730s, was absolutely cutting edge. Sample the sharp aria In questo spirano of Inganno (Deception), which one can imagine having been in the back of Mozart's mind as he sat down to compose Se vuol ballare from Le nozze di Figaro. The oratorio, in two parts, has engaging and original melodies throughout. Then there are strong performances from both the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, with Biondi conducting from the violin, and the quartet of soloists; St. Francis de Sales is a female alto, and the contrasting sopranos, Monica Piccinini (an Angel) and Roberta Mameli (Heresi) are delightful. Biondi catches the pre-Classical idiom effectively, toning down his characteristic slashing attacks and avoiding the temptation among Baroque performers to Baroque-ify everything. On the downside are the increasing similarity of the sequence of recitative and aria as the oratorio proceeds, a hazard of the genre, and the rather impersonal sound environment of Stuttgart's Stiftskirche. Recommended for Baroque enthusiasts of all stripes. ---James Manheim, AllMusic Review

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