The four cantatas by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi recorded here were published in Naples around 1736 in an elegant and carefully prepared edition entitled “Quattro cantate da camera/La prima per Cimbalo/e/Tre con vari i Recitativi, Violini, e Violetta obbligata/di/Giovan Battista Pergolesi/raccolte/da/Gioacchino Bruno/Contrabbasso della Real Cappella di Napoli/Per Divertimento a’ Dilettanti di Musica /Opera seconda/in Rame./Si vendono nella libreria di Giovanni e Giuseppe Palmiero a Fontana Medina”. A short while later, perhaps in 1738, Bruno published a new edition of the cantatas. The fact of the two publication following in short succession testifies to the singular interest which the chamber works of the very young composer from Jesi, who had died in 1736, aroused in Italian and European musical circles. For all, we need only mention the testimony of Charles de Brosses, who, in 1739, judged the fourth cantata of the collection as “la meillure des Cantates italiennes.”
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