Nicholas Spanos; Pandolfis Consort; Czech Ensemble Baroque Choir - Nicola Porpora: Salve

The ensemble Pandolfis Consort, the countertenor Nicholas Spanos and the Czech Ensemble Baroque Choir present works by the Neapolitan composer Nicola Antonio Porpora on this album entitled SALVE. The music on this album forms an imaginary concert program: In the first part, there are three Marian antiphons framed with introductory and connecting individual sonata movements composed a few years earlier in London. The second part features Psalm 127 Nisi Dominus. Together, this is the music composed by Porpora for the feast of the Assumption for the Ospedaletto in Venice in 1744. Common to all the vocal pieces is the concentration on the sonorous, uplifting voice with infinite coloratura, the virtuoso part of the first violin and, in one case, the counterpart of the choir, which is scored here as soloist voices. This reduction to the essentials, to solo instruments, to the core of the music, has for many years been the focus of the Pandolfis Consort, founded by violist Elzbieta Sajka-Bachler, performing on period instruments.