Orazio Polaroli
Salmi a quattro voci con il basso per l'organo e violini se piace op. 1
edited by Mariateresa Dellaborra and Maria Cecilia Farina

(Sacred Music, 1)

XL, 190 pp.; 21 x 29 cm
Intro and Apparatus in Italian and English

The Psalms, Op. 1 by Orazio Polaroli (c. 1695 - 1765), a composer from Brescia, were presumed lost until the editors unearthed its only existing specimen while cataloging the Pavia Cathedral music collection. Polaroli's work includes sixteen Psalms from the Divine Office, framed between a Domine ad adjuvandumand a Magnificat, for a grand total of eighteen pieces. These are written in an elegant four-part imitative counterpoint—plus continuo and two violins "if it pleases"—often yielding to solo passages for some "favorite" singers. Such discovery sheds new light on the composer, a member of a noted musical family, and offers a better knowledge of the lively 18th-century Brescia music school and environment.

Mariateresa Dellaborra, (degree in Musicology – Scuola di Paleografia e Filologia musicale of Cremona; diploma in piano) an authority on 18th- and 19th-century Italian music, she published books and essays for Olschki, Ets, Brepols, L'Epos, Lim, Ut Orpheus, Marsilio, Suvini Zerboni, Carisch and Rugginenti, wrote entries for The New Grove (2nd edition), MGG and DBI, and edited instrumental compositions by Niccolò Paganini, Giovanni Battista Viotti, Alessandro Rolla, and Saverio Mercadante, as well as operas by Giovanni Battista and Giuseppe Sammartini, Tommaso Traetta, Niccolò Jommelli, Marcos Portugal, and Alessandro Stradella premiered in important International Festivals. A board member of Società Italiana di Musicologia (Edizioni societarie) Arcadia Foundation (Milan), Ercole Pasquini’s opera omnia, and participates in the ITMI (Indici della Trattatistica Musicale Italiana) working group, Franceschini Foundation, Florence

Maria Cecilia Farina teaches at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Milan, and plays the organ and harpsichord, both as a soloist and as part of prestigious ensembles. She graduated at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in organ and organ composition, piano and harpsichord, and at the Conservatory of Brescia in choral music and choir direction. She graduated cum laude in modern literature at the University of Pavia in 1987. She also studied singing. She perfected herself in organ at the Musikhochschule of Vienna under the tutorship of M. Radulescu. She holds organ and harpsichord concerts in Italy and in many European and extra-European countries in prestigious festivals, playing important historical organs. She has done recordings for Rai Radio Televisione Italiana, Radio Svizzera Italiana, Israel Broadcasting Corporation. She has recorded CDs as a soloist. Since its foundation, she has been the continuo player of Ghislieri Consort & Choir, based in Pavia. With a keen interest on musicological research, she has held concert lessons (Rai Radio3).