Search - Davide Malvestio, Ferdinando Bertoni, Baldassare Galuppi :: Galuppi: Messa per San Marco, 1766 /Athestis Chorus * Academia de li Musici * Bressan

Welcome to the Galuppi Collective!

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 11/01/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Baldassare Galuppi (1706-175) had a decent job in Venice for most of his life, the kind of job that provided "defined benefits" - just the sort of job that our neo-conservatives strive mightily to eliminate in America. He worked for the commune of La Serenissima, as Venice called itself. He was the maestro di cappella at St. Mark's Cathedral, and the government of the city-state controlled church appointments, a thoroughly attractive mode of operation. One of Galuppi's benefits was a paid sabbatical of three years at the court of Elizabeth II in St. Petersburg. While he was away, nevertheless, he was still responsible for the composition of a Christmas Mass, and Venice had a spectacular Christmas celebration scheduled for 1766. This CD is a recreation of the music performed at that service in St. Mark's.



Galuppi didn't have to write the whole mass, however. Within the commune of musicians that ran things at St. Mark's, there were traditional divisions of labor. Galuppi was expected to compose the Gloria and the Credo, while his chief assistant was required to compose the Kyrie. That assistant, Ferdinando Giuseppe Bertoni (1725-1813), performed his duties right dutifully in hopes of eventually succeeding Galuppi as maestro. That was in fact what happened. The mass in Venice allowed for the substitution of instrumental music for some elements of the liturgy; this performance includes two short 'concerti a quattro' for strings and winds, written by Galuppi.



Galuppi has been, dare I say, a neglected and underrated composer for too long, lost in the shadow of Antonio Vivaldi. The Gloria and Credo performed here are bold, sumptuous music, not flimsy rococo elevator sound track stuff. It's interesting that the Kyrie by Bertoni, a workmanly piece of music, while plainly of the Venetian school, has such obvious traits of the "next generation."



Even today, Venice is something of a closed musical world. For that reason, I haven't listened to the performances of conductor Filippo Maria Bressan quite enough. He does an impressive job of interpreting these concerti and mass movements. His period instrument orchestra handles Galuppi's harmonic subtleties with aplomb, and his Athestis Chorus - nineteen voices - is tight enough in ensemble to sound like a smaller group. (That's a compliment where I come from, musically.) That makes this CD a double discovery for me as a listener: a composer of greater skill than I supposed, and a chorus that can SING rather than bellow."