Italian Music from the Late Renaissance and Baroque

[prémont]

Interesting label  BTW. And what about this, do you know it?



Q

No. I do not know it, incidentally I ordered it half an hour ago.

But I know this:

http://www.amazon.de/Organo-Napoletano-Michele-Deverite-Orgel/dp/B000087RG9/ref=sr_1_29?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1427488034&sr=1-29&keywords=trabaci

also by Dévérité, played on a small period Italian organ. From the listeners point of view this CD contains too many ultra short pieces (maybe about 60 versi playing about 30 seconds each) and there is accordingly a lack of continuity, but the interpretation is informed and expressive.

[Que]

No. I do not know it, incidentally I ordered it half an hour ago.

You might like it, I did!

But I know this:

http://www.amazon.de/Organo-Napoletano-Michele-Deverite-Orgel/dp/B000087RG9/ref=sr_1_29?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1427488034&sr=1-29&keywords=trabaci

also by Dévérité, played on a small period Italian organ. From the listeners point of view this CD contains too many ultra short pieces (maybe about 60 versi playing about 30 seconds each) and there is accordingly a lack of continuity, but the interpretation is informed and expressive.

I definitely believe that, given my experience withe the harpsichord disc.  My eye is currently on her Maione recording now.

For more Trabaci I got this, but haven't listened to it yet:



Q

[prémont]

Fo rmore Trabaci I got this, but haven't listened to it yet:



Q

Do it now, you will love it.

[Mandryka]

Prompted by your post I looked for recordings of music by Trabaci and found this:

http://www.amazon.de/Opere-Clavicembalo-Lydia-Maria-Blank/dp/B003U47AP6/ref=sr_1_32?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1427485651&sr=1-32&keywords=trabaci

I never heard of L M Blank before, but she is utterly outstanding and convincing. Her love for this music can be heard in every note. Recommended without reservations.

Absolutely - thanks for pointing this out. More than anyone else she made me think of the affinity with Frescobaldi. I had come across Lydia Maria Blank before through a recording of Spanish music, misleadingly called Folias (misleading because it's not just stuffed with La Folia music.) It contains the most humane performances of music by Cabanilles I've ever heard.

Another good source for Trabaci is Maria Galassi's recording called La Viaggio di Lucrezzia. Just a couple of tracks, but movingly done. The great shame is that Paola Erdas didn't record any Trabaci, she was made for it: he lived in a place ruled over by Gesualdo after all.

[JCBuckley]

Does anyone have a view on this? It got a rave review in one UK paper, but I've seen very little mention of it otherwise.

[The new erato]

Currently spotted om presto classical's future releases page.

[Florestan]

When it comes to 18th century cello concertos, the first name that comes to mind is Boccherini. The second is Haydn. The third is Vivaldi. Or the other way around. Or any combination of the three. And that´s just about it, right? Wrong.

Leonardo Leo (actually, this is only a grazioso abbreviation of his name, which is a full con bravura Lionardo Oronzio Salvatore de Leo), born in 1694 in the charmingly named town of San Vito degli Schiavoni, near Brindisi, died in 1744 in Naples a death that I imagine many a composer would have wished for: hit by a stroke while composing. While he is known primarily for his many operas (which firmly established his reputation within the Neapolitan School) and his sacred music (his Miserere for two choirs being praised by none other that Richard Wagner) he also wrote some purely instrumental music, among which 6 cello concertos composed in 1737-38.

Listening to them is not going to shatter any ground, but it might come as a shock to anyone expecting operatic tricks and gimmicks for the cello, as one might expect from a composer whose reputation rests solely on (Neapolitan) opera. In this music Leo looks both back and ahead. Back, because of the rather tight contrapuntal writing (quite un-operatic actually), and of the strict adherence to the slow-fast-slow-fast pattern of sonata da chiesa; ahead, because of his penchant for contrasting themes, which in several movements comes dangerously close to something which decades later was to be called the sonata form. And he achieve all this with a light orchestral texture and a floating graciousness which is not far away from the stilo galante. All but one of the opening movements are marked Andante/Andantino grazioso, and this in itself speaks volumes about the mood this music sets up right from the start.

We are blessed with no less than two (sic!) complete recordings:



Bylsma and Taffelmusik are a bit lighter in their approach than Suzuki and Van Wassenaers and the cello is recorded more upfront than Suzuki´s. This makes for a nicely delineated contrast between the soloist and the orchestra, while Suzuki is more like a prominent part of the same orchestra. In the second movement of the D-major concerto, unusually marked Con bravura, both come short of it in different ways: Bylsma is more brave than Suzuki but the orchestra doesn´t follow, while the Van Wassenaers are more brave than Taffelmusiks but Suzuki is rather understated. In the Fuga of the same concerto they are both successful in different ways: Bylsma takes a faster approach, muddling the voices a bit but giving a compelling feeling of momentum and forward moving; Suzuki takes it slower, all voices are clearly delineated and it sounds quite majestic. The continuo in the Bylsma set is rather on the intrusive side, especially if one listens through headphones; Suzuki has it mellower and more discrete.

Both sets have their merits and limitationss, they complement each other quite well and I wouldn´t want to be without any of them. Neither should you, actually.

[JCBuckley]

Very interesting, Florestan - thanks. I think there's one other complete set of the cello concerti available on CD, by Arturo Bonucci & the Ensemble Strumentale Italiano, issued on two discs. I've never heard it, though - have you?

[Florestan]

Very interesting, Florestan - thanks. I think there's one other complete set of the cello concerti available on CD, by Arturo Bonucci & the Ensemble Strumentale Italiano, issued on two discs. I've never heard it, though - have you?

I haven´t either. Maybe someone else has, and can offer his thoughts on it.

[Florestan]

(Cross-posting from WAYLT)



Ignazio Albertini belongs to the very exclusivistic club of composers who have been stabbed to death (the other member being Jean-Marie Leclair). If this trivia piqued your interest, here´s the AllMusic review of the above disc.

Helene Schmitt is hot stuff. In this disc of violin sonatas by the nearly unknown Ignazio Albertini, the contemporary of Biber and Schmelzer comes passionately alive under her supple bow and sensitive fingers. In Schmitt's performances, the wildly virtuosic and extravagantly emotional music of Albertini sounds like it could only have been composed by a man stabbed to death in obscure circumstances. There's poise and grace in Schmitt's performances, as well elevated lyricism. But most of all there's passion: a passionate intensity of line, a passionate concentration of tone, a passionate brilliance of color, a passionate love of this fiercely expressive and violently beautiful music. Schmitt's trio of continuo players are sympathetic players and each gets his/her own sweet solo Prelude or Toccatina interspersed with Schmitt's Sonatas. Alpha's sound is tactile in its realism and its tiny but stunning reproduction of Guido Cagnacci's The Death of Cleopatra is a visual treat.

And here´s the whole thing on YT

https://www.youtube.com/v/Yz5i_0nr2YM

[Jo498]

Wasn't Alessandro Stradella stabbed to death as well?

[Florestan]

Wasn't Alessandro Stradella stabbed to death as well?

Yes. Now, that makes three and counting. 

[The new erato]

Karl Henning better be careful.

[Jo498]

Karl's name does not sound very Italian, he should be safe. It probably also helps to restrict one's womanizing to girls who are not already involved with powerful noblemen...

[Moonfish]

another one from the most recent delivery:

[asin]B00103E3Q8[/asin]
Guess I can safely buy whatever that ensemble releases!

Tell us more!!   0:)

[king ubu]

Tell us more!!   0:)

Not really equipped to do so, I'm afraid ... but the disc captures some music of the short time Florence was the center of new vocal music (monody/opera), Dumestre gives the years as 1582 to 1616 in his introductory note. "We ... present three different stages in the evolution of parlar cantando. The arie from Giulio Caccini's Nuove Musiche and Claudio Saracini's Musiche, both published in 1614, illustrate the theories based on intoned declamation (stile recitativo) that Girolamo Mei expressed in letters to Vincenzo Galilei, and which Jacopo Peri later expounded in his preface to Euridice. The few surviving fragments of Il Rapimento di Cefalo, to a text by Gabriello Chiabrera, show the same aim, but their melodic expression comes halfway between 'ordinary' speech and an extremely ornate, declamatory mode of singing. Finally, Belli's Opera dolente is far from the idea of noble declamation. The libretto of the work was by the same poet, Chiabrera, but in Orfeo dolente Belli leaves no room at all for the grace and noble nonchalance of sprezzatura as conceived by Peri or Caccini. Orfeo dolente is above all a bitter lament, a monologue, for Orpheus, whois inconsolable and deaf to the responses and entreaties of the other characters. It is an experimental work: the character of Euridice is absent, and the usual happy conclusion is rejected, leaving Orpheus to his grief. The court tradition is waived, and Belli brings his own style to the fore. Whereas Caccini and Peri fill their recitative with basic harmonies (the tonic is often present for a good third of the solo song or madrigal), Belli uses harmony like an impressionist painter: it is impossible to tell where his musical phrase is heading and very few cadences are resolved as expeted; dissonances are never prepared, and his use of melody, unusually disjunct and dilated by chromaticisms, is remarkable, to say the least; it is easy to understand why singers of the time were so confused and reluctant to perform his music, which they found 'difficult and unsingable' (letter from Belli to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, 11 June 1616)." (from Vincent Dumestre's liner notes)

As for Le Poème harmonique, they're simply exquisit. Their long run of Alpha releases is terrific! They usually have excellent singers as well (don't take that "usually" as a slight, I'm not aware of other, but I don't know all their work), such as Guillemette Laurens, Claire Lefilliâtre, Jan van Elsacker. Last year alone they were responsible for two of my favorite releases: Charpentier/Lully Te Deum and Clérambault: Miserere / Couperin: Leçons de Ténèbres, but older discs dedicated to the likes of Belli, Charles Tessier, Antoine Boesset, Bellerofonte Castaldi etc., are all excellent. They also did Michel Richard Delalande's magnificient Tenebrae (with Lefilliâtre, I've mentioned it in the Lalande-thread already, a while ago).

Playing the disc again right now, btw, becasue I was sidetracked halfway through yesterday.

[Florestan]

Please help! Que, Mandryka, Premont!

I´ve been listening to


and



Last night they put me to sleep within half an hour each. I wait, and wait, and wait, for a melodic line to pop up --- but to no avail! Layer upon layer of chords after chords wihtout any purpose and meaning. What am I missing? Is this music supposed to not have any melody at all? Am I supposed to just revel in the juxtaposition of different harmonic layers? Well, I can´t. Music without melody is no music at all to my ears. Should I then give up on those composers?

[Mandryka]

Please help! Que, Mandryka, Premont!

I´ve been listening to


and



Last night they put me to sleep within half an hour each. I wait, and wait, and wait, for a melodic line to pop up --- but to no avail! Layer upon layer of chords after chords wihtout any purpose and meaning. What am I missing? Is this music supposed to not have any melody at all? Am I supposed to just revel in the juxtaposition of different harmonic layers? Well, I can´t. Music without melody is no music at all to my ears. Should I then give up on those composers?

You should listen to Vartolo's Frescobaldi capricci, his approach there seems to me to be derived from madrigal singing. I also suggest Vartolo for Trabaci.

The Frescobaldi Ricercari always remind me of Bach's late contrapuntal music, I don't know of Bach was aware of them.

[Florestan]

You should listen to Vartolo's Frescobaldi capricci, his approach there seems to me to be derived from madrigal singing.

I don't know.... No melody, no music for me... Give me accompanied homophony and I'll give you music, period! 

[prémont]

Please help! Que, Mandryka, Premont!

Last night they put me to sleep within half an hour each. I wait, and wait, and wait, for a melodic line to pop up --- but to no avail! Layer upon layer of chords after chords wihtout any purpose and meaning. What am I missing? Is this music supposed to not have any melody at all? Am I supposed to just revel in the juxtaposition of different harmonic layers? Well, I can´t. Music without melody is no music at all to my ears. Should I then give up on those composers?

Contrapuntal music of that kind is for the composer not about writing catchy melodies, but about finding a musical subject suitable for many ways of combinations, and then arrange them in a logical way, which establishes the wanted affect, and which creates variety and rising intensity in the course of the composition, and in its essence represents a musical sequence, which BTW may be more or less inspiring for the listener, according to the quality of the composer. It is without doubt very difficult to create quality music in this way.

But if you just want a melody, you may remember, there are tons of other composers to listen to, also in the baroque age (much Bach, and most Händel and Vivaldi et.c.).