Cantatas for bass voice are almost rarities in late-Baroque music, and the two that survive from Vinaccesi's pen show the composer's good-humoured side. In La nelle verdi spiagge, with its separate title "In lontananza della sua donna" (Parted from his lady-love), depicts Mirtillo's lament at his separation from Amarilli with exaggeratedly Arcadian flourishes, both poetic and musical. Quanto mi vien da ridere also has a separate title: "Il disinganno de gli amanti" (The disabusement of lovers"). Here, the bass assumes the persona of an old man warning those younger than him to flee the allurements of love, for "a woman's heart is as hard as stone". |
