Vespers for the Feast of the Assumption

About this book

The vespers music composed by Nicola Porpora for the feast of the Assumption (15 August) in 1744, during his first year as maestro at the Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Poveri Derelitti (popularly known as the Ospedaletto), occupies a place of particular importance in his sacred output: it can be reconstructed almost in full from manuscripts of Porpora's surviving works, and its scoring for an all-female choir consisting of divided sopranos and altos -- the typical choral forces employed in the ospedali at this time -- makes it a rare specimen of liturgical music composed expressly for the Venetian figliole. This edition recreates the music of this service by bringing together settings by Porpora of the five psalms of the Marian cursus (Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus, and Lauda Jerusalem) and the Magnificat canticle, along with two settings of the Marian antiphon Salve Regina, which would have been sung as an additional devotion following the canonical liturgy. Although the Dixit Dominus and Magnificat, composed during Porpora's years in Naples, were originally scored for standard mixed choir, it is likely that they were adapted for the 1744 performance in Venice; consequently, they have been adapted for all-female choir and soloists in this edition. - Publisher.