Enchantment of Passion: A Concert of Sacred Music in Sant'Agnello

“Enchantment of Passion” is the title of the concert that will be held on Saturday at 7 PM at the Archconfraternity of the Holy Sacrament and Nativity of the Virgin Mary of Sant’Agnello. The alto Candida Guida and the soprano Olga Cafiero, accompanied on the piano by Annalisa Pepe, will perform for the first time in modern times the “Good Friday” by Camillo Paturzo, a nineteenth-century composer from Meta, and other pieces of music by authors from the 20th century born in the Sorrento Peninsula. The evening's program is the result of the work carried out by the Centro Studi Musicali don Luigi Guida, which deals with the research, study, cataloguing, and performance of music written by composers born in the Sorrento peninsula and the in-depth study of their lives. The “Good Friday” by Camillo Paturzo consists of 8 stanzas, divided between arias and duets, which retrace the three hours of agony and the last words of Christ on the cross: “Guilty of a thousand sins” and “Like a pure lily” for soprano, “When death” and “So again from the Father” for alto, and the duets “Already pierced the hard wood”, “Turn, oh turn”, “The high enterprise” and “Jesus autem”. The text is by Metastasio, set to music by the most important composers, and it was customary in the Sorrento peninsula to sing it in churches on Good Friday. From the 20th-century peninsular authors, “Virgo Prudentissima” by Mariano Iaccarino, born in Sant’ Agnello in 1881; “Salve Regina” by Costantino Cafiero; “To the Sorrowful” by Luigi Guida (Vico Equense 1883/1951); and finally “Maria Desolata” and “Virgo Virginum” by Angelo Castellano from Meta were chosen. The concert is part of the Easter events program “Resurrexit”, dedicated to the tradition of processions, born from the synergy between the Municipality of Sant’Agnello and the Santanello Confraternities, realized within the framework of the project “Sant’Agnello. Lights, colors, and music - From the Profane to the Sacred”, with the sponsorship of the Metropolitan City of Naples, and included in the metropolitan events calendar 2023/2024.