THE NEAPOLITAN CANTATAS

The Neapolitan cantata (defined as a chamber composition for solo voice, basso con-tinuo and in some cases violins, articulated in one or more sections of aria and recitative) has remained far less explored for the period before 1700.  

The relative lack of serious studies and editions of the seventeenth-century Neapolitan cantata is all the more surprising in view of the richness of the manuscript collections of seventeenth and eighteenth-century sources conserved in the library of the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella, Naples.

Most important among the various contributors to the genre during the first half of the seventeenth century is Luigi Rossi, whose early career (up to 1620) is associated with the southern capital.