Stile Galante is a project devoted to the world of eighteenth-century Italian music, with its registered office in Amsterdam. Born from the initiative of various performers and music scholars in 2008, it aims to blend academic research (especially in the fields of philology and historical performance practice) with practical activity, focusing exclusively on Italian vocal music, in particular that of the post-baroque era. Set up in order to tackle the enormous legacy of the Italian chamber cantata (beginning with the works of Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci and Nicola Antonio Porpora), the project has quickly pushed into operatic repertory as well.
The main activities of Stile Galante take the form of recordings and concerts by its ensemble, directed not by accident by a musicologist (Stefano Aresi, the present writer), as well as dedicated conferences. Recordings by Stile Galante appear on the labels Pan Classics and Glossa, and these have included music, often unpublished, by Niccolò Jommelli, Antonio Caldara, Niccolò Zingarelli, Giuseppe Sarti, Johann Simon Mayr, Porpora, Vinci and others. Each recording project derives from systematic research work, often linked to the conferences organized by the ensemble in collaboration with universities, foundations and research centres. The performers work in close contact with the relevant musicologists, aiming for results that take full account of the latest developments in matters of performance practice, historical context and the aesthetic background of the scores in question. The most recent CD releases have been devoted to the career of castrato Luigi Marchesi and the scores containing embellishments that have been attributed to him (Arias for Luigi Marchesi, Ann Hallenberg, Stile Galante (Glossa GCD 923505, 2015)), and to the complete recording of the twelve cantatas Op. 1 by Porpora (L'amato nome: Cantatas for the Prince of Wales, Stile Galante (Glossa GCD 923513, two CDs, 2017)). The recording projects undertaken by Stile Galante have been supported over the years, aside from recording companies and private sponsors, by bodies such as the Centro Studi Pergolesi, the Fondazione Pietà dei Turchini and the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini.
There have been five conferences and study days held so far: The Cantata and the Galant Style: Developments and Circulation of a ‘New Music’ (1720–1760), Treviglio, January 2013; Musica, lettere e istituzioni a Milano nell'età di Luigi Marchesi (1754–1829) (Music, Letters and Institutions in Milan in the Age of Luigi Marchesi), Milan, March 2015; Luigi Marchesi (1754–1829), ‘Ocean of Sopranos’: Career of a Castrato Singer, Bergamo, October 2015; Maria Hadfield Cosway, musa e benefattrice (Maria Hadfield Cosway, Muse and Benefactress), Lodi, October 2015; and Nicola Porpora and Frederick, Prince of Wales: Italian Ways in Music, Art and Poetry in 18th-Century Britain, Amsterdam 2017. The scholarly committees for these conferences have been international in make-up, with members including Stefano Aresi, Nicholas Baragwanath, Talya Berger, Rosa Cafiero, Roberta Carpani, Damien Colas, Valeria De Lucca, Paolo Fabbri, Giulia Giovani, Federico Maria Sardelli, Claudio Toscani and Giulia Anna Romana Veneziano. Participation has been equally international, and conferences have featured delegates from universities and conservatories based in Austria, Canada, Croatia, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.
From January 2018 the proceedings of these events have been freely available online at www.stilegalante.org, together with critical editions of scores and scholarly texts of various kinds; in the course of this year texts relating to the years 2015–2017 will be added. In order to draw more students into the projects undertaken by Stile Galante, from 2017 five bursaries have been made available towards participation in the masterclasses that are linked to the conferences. The next scholarly events planned by Stile Galante will take place in Naples, and will focus on the singing of Farinelli.
