PRE-ORDER: Estrovagante Ensemble / Riccardo Doni - 18th Century Neapolitan Music (Ita) [CD], Estrovagante Ensemble / Riccardo Doni, CD

A city with a crucial role in eighteenth-century international politics, Naples in the Baroque era was one of the centres of culture, art, and refinement. The presence of international nobility brought wealth and prestige, patronages and opportunities; this in turn fostered the development of a musical "school" which had a twofold role. On the one hand, it concurred in establishing at the local level the role of Naples as a capital of Baroque music; on the other, it created a repository of talent and expertise ready to be exported Europewide. As we will see, many protagonists of this Da Vinci Classics album emigrated to the most important European capitals, obtaining not just personal success and fortune, but also the dissemination of the Italian - and especially of the Neapolitan - musical style in these countries.