Niccolò Jommelli – a celebration
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré, Hugo Brady
Wigmore Hall, 18 September 2024
“Vidi il mar tutto in procella” from Ricimero, re de’ Goti (1740)
“Se il povero ruscello” from Ezio (1741)
“Io già sento nel mio petto” from Merope (1741)
“Crescon le fiamme” from Didone abbandonata (1763)
“De’ miei desiri ormai… Che farò?” from Il Vologeso (1766)
Duetto, “La destra ti chiedo” from Demofoonte (1764)
“ Ombre che tacite qui sede” from Fetonte (1768)
“Hereuse paix tranquille” from La critica (1766)
“Fra l’orror di notte oscura” from Armida abbandonata (1770)
“Prendi l’estremo addio” from Ifigenia in Tauride (1771)
“Sol del Tebro in su la sponda” from Il trionfo di Clelia (1774)
“Misera Armida … Odio, furor, dispetto” from Armida abbandonata (1770)
You would be forgiven for not having heard of Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774), although he does have a Facebook profile, with the above profile picture – and now wants me to be his ‘Friend’. A prolific Neopolitan composer well-known in his day, he composed around 80 operas. He was described at the time as “the creator of a quite new taste, and certainly one of the foremost musical geniuses who have ever lived“. Selections from 11 of these were featured in this concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of his death, the first in The Mozartists’ 2024/25 season. Their exploration of Mozart and the composers around him in their MOZART 250 project has revealed many little-known delights, and Jommelli is certainly one of them. Of the five times I have reviewed music by Jommelli on this website, most have been courtesy of The Mozartists, including their 2016 concert performance of Jommelli’s opera Il Vologeso.
It is when you hear music from composers like Niccolò Jommelli (1714-74) that you realise just how deep the musical well is, if you peep behind the wall of well-known composers. Writing in that fascinating limbo period between the Baroque and Classical era, Jommelli perhaps completed too many operas for posterity to master. Il Vologeso is one of his best-known works and, on the strength of this performance by Classical Opera Company (giving the UK premiere), deserves to be heard more, and in a full staging rather than this concert performance. This was another part of their MOZART 250 project, aimed at exploring the works of Mozart and his contemporaries on the anniversary of their composition – which, in the case of Il Vologeso, was on 11 February 1766, in the enormous theatre at the Duke of Württemberg’s Ludwigsburg Palace near Stuttgart.
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 