Francesco Feo: Cantatas Vol. 2 – Ensemble Romabarocca

The handwritten collection of Neapolitan composer Francesco Feo’s works (1691-1761), in the holdings of the British Library in London, makes up – for its quality and quantity – a rather unique corpus within the framework of cantatas with a moral and religious inspiration in the seventeenth century. Thanks to his solid education and his versatile talent, Francesco Feo gained the praises of his contemporaries (Padre Martini, J. A. Hasse, J. F. Reichardt, C. Burney); he was a skilled composer, capable of employing language, form and style with enough creativity. His inborn delicacy, associated with an exquisite feeling for form, further refined and made more attractive by experience, as well as his capability of creating a warm and affectionate lyricism, colouring characters and situations (touching, not infrequently, apices of pathos and suave mysticism): these seem to be his convincingly distinctive traits.