Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804) and the Neapolitan Galant Style by Frederick Aquilina (review)

This study by Frederick Aquilina is a nice addition to the relatively scarce bibliography on the rich repertory of sacred music in eighteenth-century Malta. As the author clarifies in the preface, the book is "the product of twenty years of research" (p. ix) for his master and doctoral dissertations. While in some parts it still betrays the limits of its original purpose, this volume has the merit of presenting an accurate and detailed reconstruction of the biography and production of the maestro di cappella Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804), one of the main protagonists of the music activities at the Cathedral of Malta.

Aquilina presents his study in ten chapters organized around three main focuses: discussion of Zerafa's life and career; research on the manuscript sources of sacred music written by Zerafa and still preserved in the archives (Archivium Cathedralis Melitensis) of the Mdina Cathedral (Mdina, Malta); and analysis of all 148 sacred vocal works written by Zerafa.

The opening chapter provides the broadest and most substantial reconstruction of Zerafa's biography and career. Through a punctual reference to archival documents, often transcribed and translated, we learn that at age eight Zerafa was appointed as clericus chori in the cathedral and three years later as "'voce di soprano' to the Cappella musicale" (p. 3). Because of his talent—and perhaps also thanks to the high social status of his family—Zerafa received financial support from the Cathedral Chapter to study at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples. The years of Zerafa's training there (1738–44) coincided with the activity of some of the leading Neapolitan composers, such as Francesco Durante, Leonardo Leo, Francesco Feo, and the Maltese Girolamo Abos, the last two certainly among Zerafa's teachers. Later in the volume, Aquilina suggests that "Zerafa may have been directly influenced by Abos's (and Leo's) music during his study years at the conservatory" (p. 151). Yet the author compares Zerafa's compositions with only a few sacred works by Leo and makes mere passing references to Abos and Feo. Nor does Aquilina provide further insights on the historical or cultural reasons for the close relationships between the Neapolitan and Maltese musical institutions. On the other hand, he discusses at length the second half of Zerafa's career after returning to Malta, with a detailed account of the musician's forty-year employment as maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Mdina.

More problematic are the following two chapters, as the author evidently did not substantially revise them from their original purpose as general introductory overviews. Although the literature on sacred music in Malta is limited, a chapter like "A Concise History of Church Music in Malta: From the Late Fifteenth Century to the Eighteenth Century" presents the inevitable risk of being an overly generic digression from the volume's main focus. The first part of the chapter skims over the most important institutions and composers who cultivated sacred music in Malta in the four centuries under consideration. Slightly more useful is the second half, which deals with a description of the liturgical calendar and major festivities that included music performances in the Maltese churches.

Analogous flaws affect the third chapter, which aims at presenting a description of "Naples during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries." The rapid summary of all genres of Neapolitan music (from opera to cantata, and instrumental music to serenata) and of the main music institutions that sustained the rich production of music in Naples (from the theaters to the Royal Chapel, and the four conservatories to the unspecified "twenty-three religious institutions" [p. 83]) does not seem particularly effective in the context of research on Maltese sacred music. Rather than trying to give a problematic overview of two centuries of Neapolitan music tradition, it would have been perhaps more useful to focus on those genres, musicians, and institutions...