Description
18th century Neapolitan musicians gave Europe the elements of a style that became lingua franca throughout the continent, reaching summits of inventiveness and formal complexity in
the instrumental music of Viennese classicism.
The Neapolitan violin school played a part in the transmission of these skills. Born in the shadow of the myth of Neapolitan song and its legendary characters, having completed this task
it gently lay down to die, not attempting to participate in the cooperative project of the creation of the incipient Classical style. And one of the character traits of the citizens of Parthenope is
to shut themselves into their own “Neapolitanity”, sheltering from outside influences, as Pier
Paolo Pasolini emphasized two centuries later: “The Neapolitans have decided to die off, staying Neapolitan right to the very end, that is to say unique, unshakeable, and incorruptible”.
from the booklet text by Salvatore Carchiolo