Cantate per passione (CD)

The front cover image of Accent's Ferrandini: Cantate per passione is rather arresting, Mary Magdalene, tortured by suffering in a fifteenth century sculpture "The Mourning for Christ" by Guido Mazzoni. Too bad the music inside isn't as compelling. Giovanni Battista Ferrandini was a court composer in Munich who worked alongside Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco. After the latter began to cut back on his responsibilities owing to ill health, Ferrandini took over the mantle of chamber music director; he also composed a number of operas for the theater in Munich and numerous cantatas, including the two featured here. Feeling written out by 1753, Ferrandini was offered a pension and resettled in Padua, though by the very end of his long life, Ferrandini was back in Munich. Born the same year as Thomas Arne and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Ferrandini died just three months before Mozart.Although a so-called classical-era composer, Ferrandini's work demonstrates an inexact grasp of the style galant; his undated, stormy..