Scarlatti’s secular vocal music is more extensive than his sacred repertoire and occupies an enormous space within his overall oeuvre. It is in this substantial...

Scarlatti’s secular vocal music is more extensive than his sacred repertoire and occupies an enormous space within his overall oeuvre. It is in this substantial category including his dramatic works and madrigals that we also find his chamber cantatas. The 3 cantatas heard here all treat the subject of the forsake male lover or the female beloved left for another – a theme recurring throughout Western literature from antiquity to the lyric poetry of the seventeenth century.