Those who have collected the first four volumes of this enterprising series of Neapolitan baroque music (2/97, 10/97, 5/98 and 6/98) will relish the unabashed and inimitable vocabulary of these forgotten composers; declamatory vocal concerto, operatic theatricality, as well as earthy allusions to vernacular dance and other distilled and aurally transmitted traditions – cocking a snook at the forbidding gaze of Vesuvius – leaven themselves with purely sacred traditions with delectable ease. Antonio Florio’s exotic-sounding group, Cappella de’Turchini (Turchini means turquoise, which was the colour of the tunics of one of Naples’s leading conservatories at the time) are just the fillip for those who need constantly reminding that the musical world revolved more around seventeenth-century Naples than it did the majority of centres that patronized the great composers. This is of course the problem with so much of this underrated and glorious century: not enough Monteverdis, Charpentiers, Buxtehudes or Purcells. Instead, encyclopedias of ‘worthy’ representatives from forgotten musical meccas who gently guide us through the uncomfortable terrain of hybrid genres, not-quite established forms and mesmerizing vocal peaks and troughs – and eventually towards Corelli a few miles up the road. Neapolitans may not have enjoyed being lorded over by the Spanish but musically it often makes for a fascinating musical cocktail, and judging by Francesco Provenzale’s Vespers, such a historical juxtaposition of styles contributes directly to the resourceful realization of strong texts and responsive musical imagery.
Volume 5 of this series is a speculative reconstruction of a Vespers service for the Order of Girolamo, c1670, and much of the music displays impressive and inventive craftsmanship even if the whole is less universally beguiling than Caresana’s Per la Nascita del Verbo – a special gem in Cappella de’Turchini’s discography (2/97). With the majority of the music by Provenzale, Naples’s most celebrated composer of the period, there is still an equally invigorating and spontaneous colouring of text. In the case of the Beatus vir, a solo soprano conveys this distinctly fulsome text with chromatic melodic inflexions as if they were still wet on the page. Such movements give us the most penetrating view of the composer’s expressive powers as Provenzale is forced to plan for over a quarter-of-an-hour, a long time in the stop-start, fashion-conscious mid-baroque. Here, and in the refined Dixit Dominus and Confitebor, the Cappella de’Turchini are more concerned with conveying originality and characterization than the finer points of ensemble and intonation. If that sounds a little backhanded, there are enough reasons to feel that declaiming text, by the glorious exploitation of open-throated Latin larynxes, is justifiably the ultimate priority. Even if some of the voices don’t bear the closest scrutiny, this is musicianship that communicates where it matters. Extroverts united.'