Concerto Soave, Maria Cristina Kiehr
07 September 2024/ Italy / Sassari
CONCERTO SOAVE
Il canto nobile
María Cristina Kiehr, soprano
Romain Bockler, baritone
Jean-Marc Aymes, organ and clavichord
Sassari Sala Sassu
del Conservatorio di musica Luigi Canepa
ore 19,00
NOBLE SONG
Two personalities stand out in the monodic "new music" of the early seventeenth century. In many ways, they are similar, and their music expresses the nobility and high ideals of recitar cantando to the highest degree. Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) claimed to be of noble Florentine descent. In the preface to his first book of Musiche (1609), Sigismondo d’India (ca. 1582-1629) introduces himself as a "nobile palermitano," a nobleman from Palermo. In all his appearances, Peri, affectionately nicknamed "il Zazzerino," was praised as a singer who accompanied himself wonderfully: for example, when he sang the aria of Arione in the famous intermezzi of La Pellegrina, performed in Florence in 1589 in honor of the marriage of Christine de Lorraine to Ferdinando de Medici. Before spending most of his life in the service of the House of Savoy, D’India, still young, made a grand tour of Italy, during which he performed mainly as a singer. He certainly remained in Florence around 1600. That year, Euridice, the first opera in history, composed by Peri and Caccini for the marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV, was performed. Sigismondo certainly crossed paths with the intellectuals and musicians who gravitated around the Camerata Bardi. It was probably through their contact, as well as that of Monteverdi whom he later met in Mantua, that he became involved in the adventure of monody.
D’India had trained in Neapolitan polyphony, among others, in the circle of composers of the House of Gesualdo. The most respected of these was Giovanni de Macque, master of madrigals and keyboard music. D’India’s music is the product of Neapolitan harmonic extravagances and the dramatic and emotional power of monodic singing. Both noble and singers, Peri and d’India have left us some of the most wonderful music ever written, but not yet fully appreciated. No doubt because it requires singers with a deep knowledge of the style of this refined and elegant song, which demands a controlled freedom and a great sense of ornamentation. Romain Bockler possesses these qualities, and his in-depth work on this repertoire is unique in the field of male voices. Concerto Soave, after having dedicated a recording to Sigismondo d’India with Maria Cristina Kiehr (Harmonia Mundi) a few years ago, now offers this stimulating confrontation between two giants of the early seventeenth century, with a male voice whose register was undoubtedly that of both composers. Alongside this celebration of the "Canto Nobile", the compositions by Giovanni de Macque that complete this program evoke the high degree of perfection and freedom that keyboard music had achieved in the same period. Most of de Macque's surviving compositions have been handed down to us by another great singer and composer, Luigi Rossi, in a manuscript of his hand preserved in the British Library. Alongside these compositions is one of Peri's great masterpieces, "Tu dormi"...
Romain Bockler, baritone
Jean-Marc Aymes, organ and clavichord
Sassari Sala Sassu
del Conservatorio di musica Luigi Canepa
ore 19,00
NOBLE SONG
Two personalities stand out in the monodic "new music" of the early seventeenth century. In many ways, they are similar, and their music expresses the nobility and high ideals of recitar cantando to the highest degree. Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) claimed to be of noble Florentine descent. In the preface to his first book of Musiche (1609), Sigismondo d’India (ca. 1582-1629) introduces himself as a "nobile palermitano," a nobleman from Palermo. In all his appearances, Peri, affectionately nicknamed "il Zazzerino," was praised as a singer who accompanied himself wonderfully: for example, when he sang the aria of Arione in the famous intermezzi of La Pellegrina, performed in Florence in 1589 in honor of the marriage of Christine de Lorraine to Ferdinando de Medici. Before spending most of his life in the service of the House of Savoy, D’India, still young, made a grand tour of Italy, during which he performed mainly as a singer. He certainly remained in Florence around 1600. That year, Euridice, the first opera in history, composed by Peri and Caccini for the marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV, was performed. Sigismondo certainly crossed paths with the intellectuals and musicians who gravitated around the Camerata Bardi. It was probably through their contact, as well as that of Monteverdi whom he later met in Mantua, that he became involved in the adventure of monody.
D’India had trained in Neapolitan polyphony, among others, in the circle of composers of the House of Gesualdo. The most respected of these was Giovanni de Macque, master of madrigals and keyboard music. D’India’s music is the product of Neapolitan harmonic extravagances and the dramatic and emotional power of monodic singing. Both noble and singers, Peri and d’India have left us some of the most wonderful music ever written, but not yet fully appreciated. No doubt because it requires singers with a deep knowledge of the style of this refined and elegant song, which demands a controlled freedom and a great sense of ornamentation. Romain Bockler possesses these qualities, and his in-depth work on this repertoire is unique in the field of male voices. Concerto Soave, after having dedicated a recording to Sigismondo d’India with Maria Cristina Kiehr (Harmonia Mundi) a few years ago, now offers this stimulating confrontation between two giants of the early seventeenth century, with a male voice whose register was undoubtedly that of both composers. Alongside this celebration of the "Canto Nobile", the compositions by Giovanni de Macque that complete this program evoke the high degree of perfection and freedom that keyboard music had achieved in the same period. Most of de Macque's surviving compositions have been handed down to us by another great singer and composer, Luigi Rossi, in a manuscript of his hand preserved in the British Library. Alongside these compositions is one of Peri's great masterpieces, "Tu dormi"...
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