Muy elocuente y grata la voz de la cantante. Con una orquesta que, en divina gracia del severo Redentor, la acompaña como si de mismos ángeles de luz se tratase. Para gloria del Altísimo.
Leo was known for working extremely hard, often throughout the night. It shows here because there is more and more evidence that genius is all about going at it again and again and again. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven. And yes, the second greatest composer of all time, Leonardo (Lionardo) Leo. Leo was found dead at the age of 50 with his head on his keyboard as he was revising his opera La Finta Frascatana (also known as Amor vuol sofferenza "Love requires suffering" [by the way, I believe with Franc,ois de la Rochefoucauld that all love is self-love, that frees me up to have a good time and another beer, so no need for suffering at all]). It reminded me of how Cicero transmits a tradition (I think in his _De senectute_ "On Old Age") that Plato died writing (_Plato scribens est mortuus_) . It's a great way to go when the time arrives to head for the exit. To die in the middle of being engaged in what the eternal German poet Friedrich Schiller rightly calls the highest purpose of what it means to be human: _die Fortschreitung des Geistes_ "The advancement of the mind." That is exactly how Leonardo Leo died. I'm jealous. Leo Depuydt (Brown University).
Leonardo Leo. The greatest composer of music ever, after his friend Pergolesi. No doubt about it. This is so much better than having sex. Five hundred shades of grey. Rousset and his Talents merveilleux recorded Pergolesi's Guglielmo Duca d'Aquitania. I cannot find a recording. Where is it? It is so frustrating to promote Pergolesi as the greatest composer of music ever if there are no HD audio and video recordings of so many of his compositions. Just imagine that this were possible. It would make it possible to die in peace. Leo Depuydt PS I quickly add a comment for context. I made the comment at the recently published aria by Leo Peformed by Sabrine Piau and Concerto Soave. Here it goes: "Well, look at this. What is wrong with the history of Western music? The completely forgotten second greatest composer of Western music. Leonardo, it is so good to hear you again. The brilliant composer Niccolo` Piccinni , who was called from Naples by Marie Antoinette (before people did some unpleasant things to her lovely neck, I think it's the French who did it) in order to compose music in Paris, called Leo the "greatest composer of all time (il piu` grande di tutti i tempi)." Well, close. He is the second greatest. I personally deem Pergolesi greater. And the Carrara marble from which Pergolesi carved his transcendental musical statues was Leonardo Vinci (also mostly forgotten); about that more somewhere else . But Vinci died in 1730 just when Pergolesi began composing and Leo was the composer whom Pergolesi sought out the most for support. Leo did completely change his style after hearing Pergolesi's heart-stopping music. But back to Leo. These brilliant musicians in this video have no idea that they are making world history. They have made a critical contribution to a momentous task ahead. Will it be a lost cause? Let us hope not. Leo Depuydt PS The first opera that Piccinni composed in France was Roland. It is dedicated to Marie Antoinette. I own a copy signed twice by Piccinni two days after the first performance. The Queen must have been there. I acquired it from the antiquarian The Enchanted Island (L'I^le enchante'e) on the island in the Seine on which the Notre Dame Cathedral (recently in the news) is located. When I saw the Notre Dame cathedral burning, I could not help thinking to myself: That's where I bought the opera by Piccinni written for Marie Antoinette and signed by Piccinni, Leo's number one fan, myself being his number two fan." And then I thought to myself, the gothic cathedrals are beautiful (though the cathedral in the city of Amiens, where the French presidential couple the Macrons are from, is the most beautiful, more beautiful than Notre Dame de Paris and Violet Le Duc, the great restorer of French cathedrals in the nineteenth century, already thought so, I agree). However, cathedrals can burn. So when I saw Notre Dame burning, I also thought. The music of Leo definitely cannot burn. And even less can the music of Pergolesi. In the summer of 2014, I rented a car and arrived in the morning in Amiens and listened to two of the best excerpts of the Marian Vespers of Pergolesi (look it up). The echo in my Sony Walkman was such that I had the impression that the music filled the entire cathedral of Amiens. Then I got into my car and drove to Beauvais, the incomplete cathedral that has the highest choir of all. They put a spire on it that made it rise to 150m, what hubris. It was the highest structure on earth but the spire collapsed. I was there by 2 pm. I listened to the same pieces by Pergolesi and had a Belgian beer on a terrace. Then I quickly drove to Chartres and had dinner in front of the cathedral. The next morning I listened to the same pieces of music in the Chartres cathedral. Then I spent the rest of the summer deliberating which of the two I liked the most, Chartres or Amiens. Chartres does have the stained glass. Chartres does have the original medieval floor. But Amiens' choir is higher and it is much bigger. Amiens represents better the true notion of Gothic, earthly structures trying to reach up to the heavenly divine. So Violet Le Duc and I are in agreement that Amiens is the quintessential Gothic cathedral (not Notre Dame, not Chartres, not Reims, etc.)
En Concepción Chile conocimos obras de Leonardo Leo en la década de 60 gracias al chelista italiano de nuestra orquesta Cesar Ceradini (RIP),quien formó un grupo de cámara para divulgar principalmente obras del barroco italiano.
