Franz Hauk and the Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble have spearheaded the revival of the music of Johann Simon Mayr who was born in Bavaria but lived in Italy. In the latest instalment of their critically acclaimed recordings they turn to Il sogno di Partenope, an allegorical staged cantata composed to mark the rebuilding of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples following a fire in February 1816. Mayr’s significance as an intermediary between the opera seria of the late eighteenth century and the melodrama of the early-nineteenth is reflected in this important work, a unique kind of ‘cantata opera’ of which only the second act survives.

Naxos’ discs of the music of Johann Simon Mayr have pretty much single-handedly restored his music to public awareness. Franz Hauk, with the Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble, has spearheaded this revival, and they remain the composer’s leading champions. Il sogno di Partenope is a staged cantata that has strong operatic elements. Its appeal is not simply as a choral work as it prefigures much that Rossini was later to write, and will appeal to admirers of German and Italian music of the early nineteenth-century. Only the second act survives, and is played in this performance. This is its first-ever recording.