Giovanni Domenico Ferrandini (1709-1791) came to the Munich Court with his father in 1722. Initially active there as an oboist, he was appointed Kammer-Compositore by Elector Karl Albrecht in 1732 before being named Director of Chamber Music and appointed to the Electoral Council in 1737.

As a contemporary of far better-known masters such as Galuppi, Pergolesi and Gluck, he developed his very own variant of the gallant style: highly expressive, with a dense string sound, idiosyncratic in its melody and rhythm whilst remaining extremely sensitively written for the singers. This is no wonder, for Ferrandini enjoyed international fame as a vocal pedagogue, counting such luminaries as the tenor Anton Raff (the first Idomeneo in Mozart's opera of the same name) amongst his pupils.

It is especially his secular cantatas that provide eloquent testimony to Ferrandini's vocal art. The mezzo soprano Olivia Vermeulen and Harmonie Universelle under Florian Deuter introduce here three cantatas from a volume of six 'Cantate con Istromenti' for soprano, strings and basso continuo that has been preserved in a particularly beautiful copy in the Dresden State Library. The fact that his passion cantata 'Il pianto di Maria' was long considered a work of Handel’s provides proof of the quality of Ferrandini's music.