Quartetto Espresso
Neapolis Contrapunctum
Neapolis Contrapunctum is a delightful sequence of historic icons and timeless Neapolitan melodies, linking nine songs between the dates of 1885 ("Era de maggio") and 1953 ("Canzona appassiunata"). This project, born from the insight of Emilio Merola, aims to evoke distant narratives, akin to a rare projection of black-and-white films that navigate the sonic history of the city of Naples. This is achieved through a timbral palette composed of three instruments and one voice, all arranged with an authentic chamber music setting. Each song in this album possesses its own narrative tempo and succeeds through arrangements designed to "see" the music with an allegorical counterpoint of storytelling. The nine proposed tracks offer the listener a wide variety of sonic archetypes, gracefully bridging those of the "concertino" of the "vaudeville orchestras" to recreate improbable ensembles of French and Spanish popular music.