"In 1975 the American musicologist Everett Laverne Sutton devoted a small part of his pioneering doctoral thesis (on compositions for solo voice by Nicola Porpora) to some 'Notturni per i defunti' ('Nocturnes fir the Dead'), preserved as scores and individual parts at the Library of the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples. The analyses and historical hypotheses developed by Sutton — who worked in an environment in which gaining access to archives and information was an adventurous task — still reflect, many years later, the methodical researcher's perplexity in the face of the unusual and difficult task of situating the rediscovered repertoire. Recently, given the progress made in studies of Porpora and his life and times, we gained a fair understanding of the historical and liturgical context in which his music was created and of the transmission of some of his principal works. Both of these are fundamental to finding one's way through the chaotic critical-chronological puzzle of the manuscripts in which the Notturni are preserved.
"Its likely that these pieces were composed between 1739 and 1743, a period of the composer's life in which there are so many grey areas that what little information is known is uncertain (if not contradictory). In 1737 Porpora left London (where he was Handel's rival), settling in Venice and returning to opera composition. He replaced Johann Adolf Hasse as maestro at the Ospedale degli Incurabili. That same year the musician accepted imperial commissions in Vienna, such as the oratorio 'Il Gedeone' (performed on the 28th of March) and the cantata 'Il Ritiro.'
"When Hasse returned to the Incurabili in September 1738, Porpora left the city for his native Naples, where from June 1739 he worked as maestro at the Conservatorio di S. Maria di Loreto. Then, in October 1741 the composer requested and obtained temporary leave from the institute to go to Venice. But, despite the commitments made in Naples, Porpora did not return. Having become maestro at the Ospedale della Pieta in 1742, in July of that same year he established a close relationship with the Ospedale dei Derelitti, where he was officially hired (after two years' unpaid service) on the 2nd of February 1744. The hypothesis that the Neapolitan could have been in London on the 24th of January 1743 for the first performance of 'Temistocle' seems somewhat doubtful today in light of the, recently researched, ongoing activities at the Derelitti. But what role did the 'Notturni' play in all of this?
"As indicated above, the music survives in one score (which is from the end of 18th century and contains only the lessons) and in some individual parts (which also include fragments of responsories). The parts can be divided into two main groups, which are linked to two distinct copying phases, both of which took place between the months of September and October in 1743 and 1760. There can be no doubt that these are linked to the activities of the Conservatorio di Loreto, since the copyists (in most cases the performers themselves) left in footnotes their own names and annotations such as 'written by Fica for the Holy House' or 'I, Geremia Gizzo wrote in the service of the Casa di Loreto': unequivocal signs that they belonged to the entourage of the institution.
"It is a known fact that students of Neapolitan conservatories were under contract to provide services to churches linked to these institutions as well as — on special occasions — to chapels (including private ones) and convents, whose contracts with these educational institutions made up for the lack of a stable musical establishment. In the spring of 1760, because of the ever-worsening state of his own finances (above all the loss of a pension granted to him by the ruling House of Saxony), Porpora left Vienna, to which he had retired after honourable service to the court of Dresden. In April 1760 he returned to Naples and took up the special post of supernumerary maestro at the Conservatorio di Loreto, granted to him on the basis of his great renown. That same year moreover, the elderly composer also received (but declined) the title of maestro at another of the city's conservatories, Sant'Onofrio. The conclusion to be drawn from this state of affairs is simple: for an autumn 1760 celebration that was meant to be carried out by the students of the Conservatorio di S. Maria di Loreto — we'll see which one in a moment — Porpora re-used his own works (most likely revising them), which had been com-posed for a similar event about twenty years earlier (as attested by the pages copied in 1743).
"What the occasion was remains to be clarified. The period's liturgy required that the nocturnes for the dead be recited on two specific occasions: either for funeral rites or on All Souls Day, the 2nd of November. It is important to note how Porpora incorporates into the music each lesson from all of the nocturnes, something the liturgical rubrics justified only when celebrating the death of an extremely important person (for example, the Pope or the king) or on the specific occasion of the 2nd of November. No one with a status that would justify reciting the complete Office died in Naples or amongst Christians in either 1743 or 1760, whereas the copies were certainly made (in both cases) just before the commemoration of All Souls' Day.
"One point remains to be explained. As we have seen, in 1743 Porpora had been in Venice since two years, busy with commissions and extra work for the Derelitti and he did not leave the city at all in October or November. How, then, can we explain the performance of his music in Naples? Simply by assuming a perfonnance taking place in his absence and by recalling that the accurate dating of the copies of parts does not in any way preclude the possibility that there were other, previous ones, of which there is no longer any trace. Porpora most likely wrote the music for the 2nd of November Office of the Matins as maestro of the Conservatorio di Loreto between 1739 and 1741, and it was so well received that it was used again. Or the composer could have sent a score from Venice in time for copies to be made for the celebrations in 1743: this thesis, however, has to be checked against historical evidence of the pace at which the composer worked at the Derelitti and with the possible deterioration of relations between Loreto and the musician, a point on which no definitive views can be stated yet.
In any case, of everything that Porpora put to music at this time, only the lessons survive in their entirety. Clearly reflecting a distinctively Neapolitan taste, they are presented (as is cus-tomary) as a splendid and expressive sequence — with very little rigidity — of recitatives, ariose and arias with no 'da capo.' Each lesson displays vocal writing with rather distinct character-istics because the intonation comes from nine different singers; the names inscribed on the indi-vidual parts for the 1760 performance indicate that the performers were the soprano castrati Albanese, Bertucci, Zingarelli and Zuattasis and the contraltos Gavigli, Gazzelli, Giovannini, Giuliano and Sacchini. Nothing is known, however, about the 1743 performers.
"The rest of the Office is lost — assuming it was ever completely put to music. Nonetheless, the orchestral parts of the responsories following the individual lessons have survived together with a fragment (although it's crossed out) of the soprano part of 'Domine quando veneris.' It should be said that, from a philological point of view, restoration of the musical text of the lessons creates enormous problems, to which any sensible response has to be based on an informed hypothesis, though nothing can ever be said with absolute certainty. The large number of known variants is very difficult to manage, especially considering that the correlation between the manuscripts remains dangerously ambiguous in the absence of errors that would allow to relate them . It is also evident that at some point in time the link between lesson and responsory (envisaged at the outset) was broken by someone (who?), at least at the time of (or prior to?) the preparation of the late 18th century score, in which the individual lessons are clearly understood to be autonomous.
"As has been said, little remains of the responsories: their inclusion in this recording must, therefore, be seen as the result of a new creative act motivated by the exceptional beauty of what did survive." (Stefano Aresi, tr. Rebecca Naidis. From the liner notes.)
Performers: La Stagione Armonica, Dolce & Tempesta, Stefano Demicheli, Monica Piccinini, Romina Basso
1. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Primo: Lezione I. Parce Mihi Domine
2. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Primo: Responsorio, Credo Quod Redemptor Meus Vivit
3. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Primo: Lezione II. Taedet Animam Meam
4. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Primo: Responsorio, Qui Lazarum Resuscitasti
5. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Primo: Lezione III. Manus Tuae Fecerunt Me
6. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Primo: Responsorio, Domine Quando Veneris
7. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Minor: I. Largo
8. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Minor: II. Allegro
9. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Minor: III. Largo
10. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Minor: IV. Allegro
11. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Secondo: Lezione I. Responde Mihi
12. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Secondo: Responsorio, Memento Mei Deus
13. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Secondo: Lezione II. Homo Natus De Muliere
14. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Secondo: Responsorio, Hei Mihi Domine
15. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Secondo: Lezione III. Quis Mihi Hoc Tribuat
16. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Secondo: Responsorio, Ne Recorderis
17. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Major: I. Largo
18. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Major: II. Allegro
19. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Major: III. Largo
20. Nicola Fiorenza - Sinfonia In F Major: IV. Non Presto
21. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Terzo: Lezione I. Spiritus Meus
22. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Terzo: Responsorio, Peccantem Me Quotidie
23. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Terzo: Lezione II. Pelli Meae Consumptis Carnibus
24. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Terzo: Responsorio, Domine Secumdum Actum Meum
25. Nicola Porpora - Notturno Terzo: Lezione III. Quare De Vulva
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