The history of music-making in Rome tends to focus on Renaissance polyphony, with an occasional nod to the Baroque thereafter. But thanks to composers like Giovanni Battista Casali (1715–92), choral music continued to flourish in Roman churches and other religious establishments in the eighteenth century, too, until Napoleon’s occupation broke many of its traditions. Casali’s music, though, is as good as unknown, and this pioneering recording reveals a composer at home in the galant style – with a surprising fondness for the occasional dissonance.
Works:
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Confitebor tibi, Domine
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Comedetis carnes
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Adiuva nos, Deus
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Improperium expectavit
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Tantum ergo
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Christum regem adoremus
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Ad te levavi
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Ave Maria a 4 & a 8
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Exaltabo te
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Hodie nobis de caelo
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Quem vidistis pastores
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Constitues eos
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Justus ut palma
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Scapulis suis
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Caro mea, vere est cibus
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Haec dies
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Memoriam fecit
•Giovanni Battista Casali: Gloria Patri