The impressive childhood singing talent of Sicilian-born Cataldo Amodei (1649-93) eventually led him to Naples where he would complete his music studies, enter the priesthood, accept various overwhelming academic positions (Alessandro Scarlatti replaced him after his final dismissal), and finally resign himself to an early retirement among the order of the Theatine fathers. Judging from this expertly performed though admittedly somewhat musically wanting program of six of Amodei’s cantatas by early music vets Emma Kirkby, Jakob Lindberg, and Lars Ulrik Mortensen, we easily might conclude that the composer would have done better to have focused his abilities strictly on performance. While the vocal gymnastics Amodei requires of Kirkby are technically impressive, his reliance on rote methods of dramatic and programmatic allusion more often than not render her characterizations–and the program as a whole–dimensionless. As such, the arias tend to sound simply like highly expressive recitatives.
The workmanlike uniformity from cantata to cantata occasionally lets up–most notably in moments of the folk-dance-inspired Va’, ché l’hai fatto a me (Away, how you used me) as well as in the final work, Lieve al piè, grave al passo (With fleeting foot but solemn tread), which effectively utilizes both Lindberg’s and Mortensen’s support–but on the whole expect few surprises. To their credit, Kirkby (in excellent voice) and her colleagues draw as much inspiration as can be expected from Amodei’s rather insubstantial settings. Giovanni Zamboni’s Sonata in C minor for archlute and Bernardo Storace’s Passagagli sopra Alamire for harpsichord serve as charming interludes between the three pairs of cantatas. As usual, BIS’s sound is excellent. For baroque completists only.
