Fast-paced rush of tarantella and sea-blue melodies: Christina Pluhar and L'Arpeggiata with a Naples album. The city has been the epitome of Italy for centuries, and everyone who hears its name immediately has some song, some melody, in their ears. Naples is a place of longing, a metropolis of song, a city with a great Baroque operatic history, a melting pot of everything from Mediterranean folk music to the legendary Neapolitan canzonas made world famous by tenors like Mario Lanza or Beniamino Gigli. Christina Pluhar, who has already explored many musical worlds with her ensemble L'Arpeggiata, now makes these treasures the subject of her new double album. Together with singers in a top-class cast, she explores all facets of Neapolitan musical life in colorful interpretations and with rapid improvisational energy. The repertoire ranges (besides traditionals) from the 18th to the 20th century: The musicians rediscover Neapolitan Baroque cantatas in the 24 tracks (from the pens of the almost forgotten masters Cristoforo Caresana or Antonio Giramo), but in addition to these excavations of old music, sensational in themselves, they afford themselves an unprecedented foray into popular Neapolitan songs that evoke the city's unique Mediterranean flair. L'Arpeggiata burns off true fireworks with ever new variations of the Tarantella - the rousing typical Neapolitan folk dance, whose tempo provides the audience, dancers and musicians with just hypnotic- intoxicating states. The journey ends with famous songs like Dicitencello Vuje by Rodolfo Falvo - a true Naples hit, which has been interpreted not only by tenors like Mario Lanza, but also by Tony Bennett and Nina Simone.