Product Description
"This is a study of the church music by Davide Perez and Niccol Jommelli and of how their styles evolved in relation to social and aesthetic influences. Both Neapolitans, they were amongst the most eminent composers in eighteenth-century Europe. In many aspects their lives followed a parallel progress, interweaving with persons and institutions in Naples, Rome, Vienna, Venice, and Lisbon. Jommelli has always had a place in the histories of music as a reformer of opera seria. Perez howevera musician who after one of the brightest careers in mid-century operatic Italy, dedicated himself for his last twenty-three years almost exclusively to church musicwas unjustifiably almost completely forgotten. The second part has to do with the funeral music. This comprises the Office and Masses of the Dead, and the Triduum offices, which is very similar to the former. Their musicwhich presents the Christian hope for personal immortality in a very sentimental and melancholic moodis quoted extensively." ... Read more

Product Description
A catalogue of Davide Perez's (1711-1778) church music. Perez was one of the greatest Neapolitan composers of the eighteenth century. His generation, which also had names such as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Niccolò Jommelli, was responsible for the enormous prestige that opera seria had during their times. But, because of his religious character and personal devotions, Perez had also a long and strong commitment to church music. This commitment was reflected not only in the large number of pieces Perez composed, or in the dramaticism of his later music, but also in the knowledge and command he had on the traditional technical possibilities of church styles. It is hoped that this catalogue will make Davide Perez's church music better known, and help to confirm his position - like his contemporaries believed - as one of the greatest Italian composers ofthe century. ... Read more