A new Antonio Florio-directed recording from Glossa, once more focusing on a famous Italian singer from the Baroque era, again features the gorgeous vocal qualities of the modern-day Italian interpreter of such music, Roberta Invernizzi. This new and glorious succession of virtuoso arias captivated audiences in Roman theatres through the vocal chords of one eminent singer from 1718 onwards…

The debut album from countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński – born in Warsaw, trained at New York’s Juilliard School, and 2016 winner of the Metropolitan Opera's prestigious National Council Auditions – Anima sacra features what are believed to be world premiere recordings of eight Baroque arias, notably by composers of the Neapolitan school. Orliński is partnered by Il pomo d’oro conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.

St John’s Passion is a newly discovered masterpiece of the Italian baroque. The autograph manuscript is in the Biblioteca dei Filippini in Naples. The Evangelist is a countertenor and Jesus and Pilate are tenors. The choir is the crowd and the accompaniment is a string quartet. An Italian harpsichord and an organo di legno have been used for the basso continuo and they are joined by a harp.

Francesco Feo was one of the greatest Neapolitan composers of the first half of the 18th century. During a career extending from 1713 through 1760, the year before his death, he remained in Naples, where he composed operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, passions, psalms, and canticles, among other works. His setting of Metastasio’s first opera libretto, Siface, led to commissions from Rome and Turin. His growing fame resulted in commissions from Madrid and Prague; Hasse, resident in Dresden, where Feo’s works were also performed, wanted to entrust Feo with leading the premiere of a serenata he wrote for Naples. The music historian Charles Burney praised his works for their “fire, invention, and force in the melody and expression in the words.”

Fabio Biondi’s immense curiosity for characterful music – especially of forgotten scores from the Baroque – yields another fabulous surprise with Francesco Feo’s oratorio San Francesco di Sales. Feo’s reputation is at last starting to wax after having waned dramatically in the nineteenth century and thenceforward: in his own age he was compared very highly with Bach and Handel, and Charles Burney was moved to describe his vocal music as being “full of fire and invention and force in the melody and expression of the words”; Feo was also a boon companion of Pergolesi.