Italian Music from the Late Renaissance and Baroque

[Que]

Time to revive this all too little thread with a mixed disc with harpsichord and organ pieces by the elusive Bernardo Storace, played by Fabio Bonizzoni. Little is known about Storace who was Maestro di Capella at Messina, Sicily.

I did not pay sufficient attention to this disc first time around, it sounded OK but my interest wasn't really triggered. Probably a quick listen during breakfast before rushing off to work is not ideal for attentive listening! Because this is interesting stuff, provided that you're into "earlier" Italian Baroque keyboard music. I am. I would position Storace as a successor to Frescobaldi, the same structured, reflective music in a formal style but with quite more forward looking features added - denser, more virtuosic, rhythmically dynamic and expressive. Glimpses of the keyboard music by the Neapolitan School are clearly present. The organ music is a bit more conservative but very fine and it is the authentic characterfull sounds of the Sicilian organ that does it.

Great, expressive playing by Fabio Bonizzoni, who was a pupil of Ton Koopman, something which is not immediately noticeable, probably because of a difference in (musical) personality. Yet on the organ he does pay, like Koopman, a lot of attention to proper articulation. Maybe I wouldn't have minded slightly less hesitations in some of the slower keyboard pieces. Beautiful instruments that are beautifully recorded - a harpsichord by Nikolaus Damm after Trasuntino and the organ of the Chiesa della SS.Trinità in Petralia Sottana, Sicily, built in 1751.

Maybe not indespendable but an issue of clear interest to those into keyboard and organ music of this period.

Q

[False_Dmitry]

the elusive Bernardo Storace,

Not to be confused with Stefano Storace, a double-bassist and composer who moved to London, becoming Musical Director of Vauxhall Gardens.  He married an Englishwoman, and their son Stephen Storace anglicised the family surname's pronunciation.  Stephen studied in Italy before moving to Vienna, where he worked alongside Salieri, played billiards with Mozart, and staged operas at the Hoftheatre.  After his sister Anna "Nancy" Storace fell from grace as mistress of Emperor Josef II (and prima buffa at the Hoftheatre - premiering Mozart and Salieri main roles) the Storaces moved back to London, where Stephen wrote a short string of box-office-hit proto-romantic operas before dying of pneumonia brought on by overwork at age 35.

[Que]

CESTI, ANTONIO Le disgrazie d'Amore.

What a marvellous performance of some extraordinary moving music!

Panned by the reviewer in Gramohone who obviously had no understanding whatever of the style and no feeling at all for the intensity of the story, and another reason why I let my subscription lapse and never will touch the magazine again.

I rather believe the blogger behind newolde.com "Indeed, this is one of the best recordings to date of a 17th Century Italian opera" or Brian Robins in Early Music Review "This set is not only an artistic triumph in its own right, but also one of the most important additions to the catalogue we're likely to see this year." .

Stupidities like the review in Gramophone however carries more weight and is a reason that Hyperion probably has lost lots of money on this set - and have reduced the probablity that we will see more releases like this.

Burn in hell, and goodbye, Gramophone. You can market the latest Rattle release without the help of my money.

Noted!

And thanks again for pointing out more of that wonderful Italian Baroque vocal stuff!

Q

[SonicMan46]

Just left the post below in the 'listening thread' but more appropriate here; Maione from his dates was a transitional Renaissance-Baroque composer from Naples; however, his music on these 2 discs place him into the early Italian Baroque and likely an innovator in these styles of keyboard music - just a short Wiki article HERE - cannot provide much information on the harpsichord used (those parts of the notes are in Italian, but there is an English translation of the remainder of the booklet) - my purchases were based on a recommendation by Paul in another thread - 

Maione, Ascanio (c. 1579-1627) - Harpsichord Works, Bks. 1 & 2 w/ Francesco Tasini on 2 separate CDs - a little information of the Tactus website HERE - beautiful performances and sound recording from an earlier Italian keyboard performer & composer - 


 

[PaulSC]

Just left the post below in the 'listening thread' but more appropriate here; Maione from his dates was a transitional Renaissance-Baroque composer from Naples; however, his music on these 2 discs place him into the early Italian Baroque and likely an innovator in these styles of keyboard music - just a short Wiki article HERE - cannot provide much information on the harpsichord used (those parts of the notes are in Italian, but there is an English translation of the remainder of the booklet) - my purchases were based on a recommendation by Paul in another thread - 

SonicMan, so glad you're enjoying these. They've stood up as one of my best purchases in recent memory. I'm particularly taken with the toccatas these days -- that mixture of improvisational freedom and purposeful design really appeals. Evidently Mayone wrote for, or is performable on, Renaissance double harp, which I'm now curious to hear. There's discussion in Anthony Newcomb, "Frescobaldi's Toccatas and Their Stylistic Ancestry," Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 111 (1984 - 1985): 28-44.

[asin]B000P1KTRS[/asin]

(and single pieces scattered across other discs)

Another resource: Ascanio Mayone Society

[SonicMan46]

SonicMan, so glad you're enjoying these. They've stood up as one of my best purchases in recent memory. I'm particularly taken with the toccatas these days -- that mixture of improvisational freedom and purposeful design really appeals. Evidently Mayone wrote for, or is performable on, Renaissance double harp, which I'm now curious to hear. There's discussion in Anthony Newcomb, "Frescobaldi's Toccatas and Their Stylistic Ancestry," Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 111 (1984 - 1985): 28-44.



Another resource: Ascanio Mayone Society

Hello Paul - thanks for the additional information - now, Mayone vs. Maione, the latter looks more Italian to me but the society above linked uses the other spelling - which one (or is both) correct to use?

My wife (Harpo on this site) & I love the harp - she plays (and sings) many instruments - the pic added above is a corner of our living room showing her 2 harps; the larger one was made by Chris Caswell years ago now, but he is in your 'neck of the woods' on the CA coast.  I'd love to obtain that disc but rather pricey on the Amazon MP once S/H is added - maybe an MP3 download someplace?  Dave 

[PaulSC]

Hello Paul - thanks for the additional information - now, Mayone vs. Maione, the latter looks more Italian to me but the society above linked uses the other spelling - which one (or is both) correct to use?

My wife (Harpo on this site) & I love the harp - she plays (and sings) many instruments - the pic added above is a corner of our living room showing her 2 harps; the larger one was made by Chris Caswell years ago now, but he is in your 'neck of the woods' on the CA coast.  I'd love to obtain that disc but rather pricey on the Amazon MP once S/H is added - maybe an MP3 download someplace?  Dave 

Wow, those harps are beautiful!

re: Maione vs Mayone, I've seen the latter spelling more frequently than the former in modern sources. But obviously it's spelled with "i" on those Tasini discs. I guess the modern Italian alphabet lacks the letter "y" (?).

The Zauner-Pagitsch CD is a bit more than I want to pay, too. There are previews here: http://www.harfen.at/joomla/content/view/94/5/ on the basis of which I suspect I prefer this repertoire on harpsichord. But to satisfy my curiosity I may purchase individual downloadable tracks from one or more of the following mixed harp programs:



Galassi^1,2, Kelly^1,2, Nishiyama², Lawrence-King^2
1Amazon
²iTunes

[Leo K.]

Wow! This disk of the sonatas of Giovanni Battista Mazzaferrata (16??-1691) is wonderful! There are foreshadowings of classical style in his music.



Sonata II
Sonata III
Sonata I
Sonata IV
Sonata V
Sonata VI
Sonata VII
Sonata VIII
Sonata IX
Sonata X
Sonata XI
Sonata XII

(2 Violins, bassetto viola ad lib. & continuo)

[Leo K.]

Dorindo, dormi ancor

This is very nice! Another new work and composer to dive into on a Sunday afternoon 



Quoth the Wiki:

Nicola (Antonio) Porpora (or Niccolò Porpora) (17 August 1686 – 3 March 1768) was an Italian composer of Baroque operas (see opera seria) and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli. One of his other students was composer Matteo Capranica.



Porpora was born in Naples. He graduated from the music conservatory Poveri di Gesù Cristo of his native city, where the civic opera scene was dominated by Alessandro Scarlatti.

Porpora's first opera, Agrippina, was successfully performed at the Neapolitan court in 1708. His second, Berenice, was performed at Rome. In a long career, he followed these up by many further operas, supported as maestro di cappella in the households of aristocratic patrons, such as the commander of military forces at Naples, prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, or of the Portuguese ambassador at Rome, for composing operas alone did not yet make a viable career. However, his enduring fame rests chiefly upon his unequalled power of teaching singing. At the Neapolitan Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio and with the Poveri di Gesù Cristo he trained Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimbeni, and other celebrated vocalists, during the period 1715-1721. In 1720 and 1721 he wrote two serenades to librettos by a gifted young poet, Metastasio, the beginning of a long, though interrupted, collaboration. In 1722 his operatic successes encouraged him to lay down his conservatory commitments...

[Que]

Though Roberto Valentino was born in Leicester as Robert Valentine, he was Italian based and wrote in Italian style - so I'm quoting this here:

A beautiful disc of sonatas for recorder & basso continuo by an almost unknown Roberto Valentini.

[asin]B000MTEGL8[/asin]

The music is lively, beautiful and varied; all in all, a worth addition to any discography.

Curiously, the reviewers and even the Ramée website itself omit to indicate that two different harpsichords are used in the continuo (together with the cello): (1) a harpsichord Matthias Griewisch, Bammental, 1996 after Aelpidio Gregori, c. 1700 and (2) a gut-stringed harpsichord Christian Fuchs, Frankfurt-Höscht. The name "gut-stringed harpsichord" is quite weird, but I supposse it's used because a name as "lute-harpsichord" or "lautenwerck" could be a bit misleading, as the instrument doesn't sound too much as lute, but maybe more as a guitar. Very nice, indeed!

Review on MusicWeb International

Ramée website

Interesting! I love recorder music. I was also intrigued by the "gut stringed" harpsichord. Judging from the samples it has the percussiveness of the harpsichord but the sound of a luth or baroque guitar.

Q

[SonicMan46]

Though Roberto Valentino was born in Leicester as Robert Valentine, he was Italian based and wrote in Italian style - so I'm quoting this here:

Interesting! I love recorder music. I was also intrigued by the "gut stringed" harpsichord. Judging from the samples it has the percussiveness of the harpsichord but the sound of a luth or baroque guitar.

Well, I went ahead and ordered the Roberto Valentini disc after the post/review above; interestingly, another (this time Italian) composer 'popped up' in my Amazon search, i.e. Guiseppe Valentini (1681-1753), so I added that disc to my order (love that Zig Zag label) - own nothing at the moment by either of these composers.

BTW - I'm assuming that the harpsichord mentioned by Q is just the lute-harpsichord or lautenwerck?  We've had some discussion of this instrument (and its modern reproductions along w/ the use on non-metal & non-gut strings) in the 'Old Musical Instruments' thread -


 

[SonicMan46]

Valentini, Giuseppe (1681-1753) - Italian violinist, composer, painter, and poet who studied under Giovanni Bononcini in the 1690s. He was overshadowed in his lifetime by fellow composers, such as Corelli, Vivaldi, & Locatelli.  Most of his instrumental music was written in the first decades of the 18th century (list below from a short Wiki article; does not include a small number of vocal works).

A new composer to me but ordered the disc shown below of the Op. 7 works (these are listed as No. 1-3, 7, 10, 11 - as stated in the opus listing 7 works are indicated, so not sure about the numbering?).  I really enjoy this group and the label - excellent liner notes; the music is inventive and a nice change from the usual Italian works written in the late Baroque.  The performances are excellent and the recording top notch. 


Op. 1: 12 Sinfonie (1701)
Op. 2:  7 Bizzaria for 2 violins, viola, B.C. (1703
Op. 3: 12 Fantasie for 2 violins & bass (1706)
Op. 4:  7 Idee for violin & B.C. (1706)
Op. 5: 12 Sonate a tre (1707)
Op. 6: Unpublished
Op. 7   7 Concerto 4 violins (C. grossi) (1710)
Op. 8: 12 Allettamenti per camera (1714)
Op. 9-12: unpublished (promised in Op. 8 preface)
Op. ??: 7 Concerti 2 violins, 2 horns, B.C.

[Drasko]

I'm considering these two, any opinions?



http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005L12SE4/?tag=goodmusicgu03-21
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000CR79LY/?tag=goodmusicgu03-21

[mc ukrneal]

I'm considering these two, any opinions?

Harry has enthusiastically recommended this one I think. Hopefully he will see the post and comment.

[Leo K.]

Discovering the six sonatas of Azzolino Bernardino (1671-1755) and having a fun time hearing these amazing, beautiful and somewhat angular sounding works.

[bumtz]

This is one of my favorite CDs in my collection, and it is the first time I see it being mentioned by anybody!

[bumtz]

Harry has enthusiastically recommended this one I think. Hopefully he will see the post and comment.

This one is excellent, and the repertoire is somewhat less than obvious. Buy without hesitation! Amazon.de has it for some laughable amount of €. 

[Geo Dude]

I have to admit that my collection is lacking in Italian baroque.  Any recommendations for keyboard recordings -- harpsichord or organ -- other than D. Scarlatti?

[Que]

I have to admit that my collection is lacking in Italian baroque.  Any recommendations for keyboard recordings -- harpsichord or organ -- other than D. Scarlatti?

Coincidentally this is just an area I am investigating. BTW an important successor of D. Scarlatti was of course Antonio Soler. But then again Spanish and Italian Baroque are highly intereconnected.

I'll come back for more recommendations, but I'll recommend one smashing disc for now - a must have, IMO:



Q

[Opus106]

I have to admit that my collection is lacking in Italian baroque.  Any recommendations for keyboard recordings -- harpsichord or organ -- other than D. Scarlatti?

The talk of the town last year: Frescobaldi!