Note Senza Tempo Festival: Around a Ground

Sassari – 4 October 2025
Around a Ground 

The programme is a journey through Sonatas and ostinato forms typical of the Italian 17th century, exploring the wide area where instrumental music and dance intersect, and where exchanges between art music and popular traditions took place. It features a Bergamasca—a courtship dance originating from the city of Bergamo, probably composed over a 15th-century Tuscan song, presented here in Uccellini’s enriched and reworked version; a Ciaccona—a dance of Ibero-American origins with strong ethnic and erotic connotations, banned from theatrical performances in 1615 for its contagious and persistent inclination towards lust, in the versions by Merula and Corelli; the Ballo del Gran Duca—originally a choral stage dance composed by Emilio de’ Cavalieri, later transformed into an epithalamic dance concluding the Florentine Intermedi of 1589, in Buonamente’s version. By Falconiero, the Passacaglia and the Battalla de Barabaso yerno de Satanas stand alongside the famous Follia—a processional theme of Iberian origin derived from the term folias (“leaf”), here in the version by Andrea Falconiero. 

Orfeo Futuro brings together musicians from diverse international backgrounds in the field of historically informed performance. The ensemble focuses on original and wide-ranging projects, particularly those that intersect early and contemporary repertoires. They perform regularly in about 50 concerts each year, in Italy and abroad, and have produced numerous recordings, also in collaboration with other artists and ensembles. 

Orfeo Futuro also engages in new music projects: in 2019, they created De L’Innito, featuring music by Claudio Monteverdi and composer Gianvincenzo Cresta (1968), in collaboration with the prestigious vocal ensemble Spirito from Lyon, under the direction of Nicole Corti. This project premiered at the Venice Biennale Musica and later toured in Italy and France. 

With the same vocal ensemble, in 2022 they recorded Claudio Monteverdi’s Missa In Illo Tempore on a CD released by Digressione Music. 

In 2024, they toured Italy and France with Il Tempo della Voce, in co-production with MusicaTreize of Marseille. 

With the support of Puglia Sounds, in September last year they held a tour in northern France and Catalonia with a programme of early 18th-century Italian music, which was met with great public acclaim. 

Orfeo Futuro is under the musical direction of Pierfrancesco Borrelli, Gioacchino De Padova, and Giovanni Rota, with Gianvincenzo Cresta as artistic director.

Ensemble Orfeo Futuro
Giovanni Rota, violino barocco
Valerio Latartara, violino barocco
Gioacchino De Padova, viola da gamba
Pierfrancesco Borrelli, clavicembalo
Giuseppe Petrella, tiorba e chitarra barocca

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Around a ground

Marco Uccellini Aria sopra la Bergamasca
(1603 – 1680) dalle Sonate Arie et Correnti , Venezia 1642

Andrea Falconiero Ciaccona
(1585/6 – 1657) dal Primo libro di Canzoni, sinfonie e fantasie, Napoli 1650

Dario Castello Sonata prima a due soprani
(15?? – 16??) Allegro – Adagio, Allegro – Adagio, Presto – Adagio, Presto
dalle Sonate concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro I, Venezia 1629

Andrea Falconiero Passacalla
dal Primo libro di Canzoni, sinfonie e fantasie, Napoli 1650

Giovanni Battista Buonamente Ballo del Gran Duca
(1595 - 1642) dal Quarto libro de varie sonate, Venezia 1626

Arcangelo Corelli Sonata duodecima “Ciacona”
(1653 – 1713) Largo – Allegro

dalle Sonate da camera à Tre, doi violini, e Violone, ò Cimbalo, Opera
Seconda, Bologna 1685

Andrea Falconiero Battalla de Barabaso
dal Primo libro di Canzoni, sinfonie e fantasie, Napoli 1650

Marco Uccellini Sonata detta la Prosperina
dalle Correnti e arie opera quarta, Venezia 1645

Andrea Falconiero Folias echa para mi Senora Dona Tarolilla de Carallenos
dal Primo libro di Canzoni, sinfonie e fantasie, Napoli 1650