04/05/2018
In the realm of church music, eighteenth-century Rome, a cosmopolitan cultural melting pot where the shock of the new was frequently juxtaposed with the ruins of antiquity, was worlds away from being the conservative musical backwater as portrayed in many standard music histories. During the reigns of several discerning and culturally sophisticated Popes the city played host to a wealth of artistic patronage as rival cardinals competed to employ the best maestri di cappella. After the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars the careers and compositions of many of these superb maestri quickly fell into obscurity. With this concert we pay homage chiefly to the mastery of Sebastiano Bolis (c.1750-1804), maestro to Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart at San Lorenzo in Damaso, as well as his contemporary, Maria Rosa Coccia (1759-1833), the first woman to achieve the qualification of maestra di cappella of Rome.
