ABSTRACT
Friedrich Riedel has suggested that the theorbists depicted are Francesco Conti and Georg Reutter. Few of Conti’s cantatas and liturgical works are dated, making it almost impossible to know the extent of his contribution to the chamber and church music performed at the court during the interregnum. Three of his cantatas for soprano and basso continuo may have been composed between 1711 and 1713. They appear in a manuscript collection with nine other cantatas by Giovanni Bononcini, Antonio Caldara, Emanuele d’Astorga, and Andrea Fiore. With the curtailment of festive events during the period of mourning for Joseph I, it is a foregone conclusion that the composers would use another medium such as the cantata to express their creativity. In the intervening period between the death of Joseph I and the coronation of Charles VI, Dowager Empress Eleonora Magdalena served as regent.
