This month Declan Zapala explores a timeless Neapolitan aria. Deeply infused with the opera style it brings plenty of warm, lush chords and beautiful, charming melodies.
ABILITY RATING Moderate/Advanced ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Info https://bit.ly/3EsttvD Will improve your… Execution of trills Key G Tempo 102/60bpm Dynamic balance Creation of different string tones
This month’s classical arrangement is a hugely recognisable piece among singers, perhaps due to its accessibility as a short-form and self-contained aria. It has found itself a staple of both the stage and the classroom for these reasons, which has secured its continued popularity 250 years after its inception.
The piece’s composer, Tommaso Giordani, had a rather unconventional musical training. He was born in Naples in 1733 and initially grew up watching his local Neapolitan contemporaries such as Domenico Scarlatti [GT337] composing in the baroque style, but by the time he began showing an interest in music, local tastes were changing which would pave the way for what we would later define as the classical period of music. The prevalence of Opera is one such defining aspect of this era and was Giordani’s vessel with which he carved out a musical career for himself, as well as being the source of his unconventional musical training. During the 1740s his father formed a small touring opera company which the family took part in, so from a very early age a young Tommaso found himself immersed in a life of music, travelling all around Europe alongside his parents and siblings as an operatic singer and dancer, even playing London’s Theatre Royal in Covent Garden in 1753 (known today as the Royal Opera House). By this time, aged 20, Giordani had taken an interest in composition and his first comic opera La Comediante Fatta Cantatrice premiered in Covent Garden on the 12th January 1756.
Giordani spent most of his adult life living in Dublin and London, and during these years wrote a large body of music including chamber and orchestral works, alongside cantatas and operas. Sadly many of his operas received less-than-ideal criticism from his peers with many operas doomed to financial failure, one even saw him receive accusations of plagiarism which resulted in him choosing to leave Ireland and moving back to London for 16 y
