.:: CONCERT REPERTOIRE ::.

PROGRAMS

L'arte e l'inganno
La Commedia dell’Arte e la musica

premiere: Festivoce, Pigna, Corsica, on February 28th, 2009
Staging by Toni Casalonga, from June, 2009, also available with video installation

8-13 performers, with Enrico Fink and Martina Marincola, actors
Gloria Moretti: voice, Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione, cetra
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer
(Elisabetta Benfenati: renaissance guitar, Federico Marincola: lute, colascione)
(Cecilia Knudtsen: viola da gamba)
(Lionel Desmeules, Mauro Borgioni: voice)

One of the Commedia dell’Arte’s most direct ancestors was street theater, the itinerant players that have made their way across Europe from time immemorial. In Renaissance Italy, they were professionals at the margin of society, basing their craft on a vast repertoire that alternated scenes of comedy and pathos, designed for a public drawn from all levels of society. Their shows used a few fixed characters that represented, in a grotesque and caricaturial way, society’s most significant figures: the rich merchant, the poverty-stricken peasant, the soldier of fortune. However, the Commedia dell’Arte differed from normal street theater in a variety of ways. Flourishing between the Renaissance and the Baroque, it was a flame that would burn itself out relatively quickly. It was born in 16th Century Italy, when the crisis of courtly patronage would force actors and musicians to form companies that performed for a paying public. From the birth of the genre on, there was more emphasis on text, song and music than on the physical or acrobatic aspects of performance: the Commedia dell’Arte was above all a theater of words and situations, of song and extended verbal improvisation, of citations and nonsense.

Beginning with the frottole of the first decades of the 1500’s - often cited in the theater of Angelo Beolco, “il Ruzante,” who may be seen as the link between the classical citations of courtly theater and the Commedia dell’Arte - the musical repertoire of the era bears witness to the Commedia dell’Arte’s impact on society. This is especially true of the vast and unabashed Moresca repertoire: examples of real and proper musical farces in miniature.

Macchine
Science and Music at the Time of Leonardo da Vinci

9-11 performers, premiered August 30th, 2008 at l’Abbaye de Royaumont
Gloria Moretti, Lionel Desmeules, Mauro Borgioni: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione, cetra
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer
Cecilia Knudtsen: viola da gamba
(Elisabetta Benfenati: renaissance guitar, Federico Marincola: lute, colascione)

The music of Leonardo’s time, along with architecture, painting and poetry, was considered a domain where Mathematica naturalis exhibited all of its possibilities. The practical arts were the mirror where mathematical concepts found both their proof and their application. Indeed, this fusion between art and knowledge at the dawn of the Renaissance went far beyond the concepts of art and of science with which we are familiar today. Music, in particular polyphony, more than any other form of artistic expression, becomes the terrain of choice for experimentation, because of the immediate, tangible results of any research carried out in the field. Complex rhythmic proportions, chromaticism, coloration and fictae, a universe dominated by the Northern maestri of the international polyphonic style: music was the place where mathematical intuitions could be brought to life, where composers gave musical form to the proportions that governed their world.
As if to counterbalance this universe dominated by architects of sound, an alternative musical concept began being heard in culture’s highest echelons. Driven by the renewed interest in philological studies, the Humanists’ aim was to revive the classical tradition, which considered the monodic declamation of poetry the most perfect form of musical expression. The clearest in his exposition of this new musical aesthetic was without a doubt Angelo Poliziano, who lived in open revolt against the polyphonic tradition, which he saw as a remnant of days past. The controversy went on for a long time, but positions began to become reconciled thanks to the efforts of polyphonists, like Tinctoris or Gaffurius, who were also accomplished Humanists, and the diffusion of polyphonic forms better suited to Italian taste, such as frottole, barçellette, strambotti, odi and capitoli. These last were poetical-musical structures, simple counterpoint used to set the texts (and probably the melodic formulas) typically employed for declamation.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s multi-faceted formation was probably no different from that of any other musician or intellectual of his era. An accomplished singer, he also played the Lira da braccio, and consequently, was probably a competent improviser of verses. Among Leonardo’s drawings, there are sketches of new instruments, macchine designed to produce music. Objects that were never built, or if they ever were, have disappeared without a trace. The “viola organista”, a mechanical drum, wind instruments with multiple pipes: visionary instruments, yes, but real ones, not mechanical toys or curios. Architecture, mathematics and geography, counterpoint, poetry and perspective, color theory, astronomy… the marvelous machines by which Renaissance Man learned to measure the scope of the greatest.

Ain neue Lid
Music from 16^th Century Ashkenaz

7-10 performers, premiered at the Jewish Summer Festival, Budapest, September 4th, 2008
Program created with the support of the Rothschild Foundation and the EAJC

Gloria Moretti: voice, Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Enrico Fink: voice, narration
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione, cetra
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer
(Elisabetta Benfenati: renaissance guitar, Federico Marincola: lute, colascione)
(Cecilia Knudtsen: viola da gamba)
The alternation of periods of hostility with those of clemency on the part of the local population, princes and ecclesiastical institutions marked the existence of the Jews who lived in the German lands from medieval times throughout the Renaissance, and the 16th century was certainly no exception. This continuous cycle of conditioned acceptance, oppression, expulsion (and worse) would not be broken until the enlightenment. Still, despite adversity, there are clear signs of a flourishing cultural tradition, closely entwined with that of the surrounding populations. In fact, it was a German dialect that would be the basis of the culture of one of the most important Jewish populations, the “Ashkenazy” (from a Hebrew word for Germany, used to identify Jews who originated from or lived in German-speaking territory). It was in this era that the seeds of “Yiddishkeit” were sown, of a poetical and musical tradition that has identified an entire people for centuries. The same time also saw the first major Ashkenazy diaspora, so that books printed in Prague, Amsterdam and Metz were sold in Cracow and Lublin; and Yiddish literary works written in Venice became popular in Lithuania and the Ukraine.
Much Jewish poetry meant for singing has survived in 16th Century collections. Written in a German not so different from that spoken by the mainstream population, aside from its occasional Hebrew interpolations, and the fact that it is written in Hebrew characters. In the small South German towns where Church and Synagogue were sometimes separated only by a tavern, Jews and Christians probably used the same music for dancing and celebrations. Indeed, much of the liturgical music and folk songs transcribed by Abraham Idelsohn at the beginning of the last century bear strong traces of Renaissance music. This is Yiddish before the “fantastic voyage” that would bring it across Eastern Europe and back again, but with its pithy humor, biting satire and contemplative moments, it is just as lively, earthy and touching as the Yiddish of yesterday and today.

Una Musa Plebea
“Minor” repertoires in Italian Renaissance music

7 performers:
Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi, Elisabetta Benfenati: viola da mano, colascione, renaissance guitar
Massimiliano Dragoni, hammer dulcimer, percussion

In the “workshop” of the Italian courts, the Quattrocento forged a style that melded the refined international polyphony of the Franco-Flemish School to the Italian taste for clear line and clear counterpoint, influencing the musical aesthetic for all of Europe during the century that followed. The splendid, complex structures of the Ultramontani composers cohabited with a repertoire with a more local and “municipal” allure: the great maestri from over the Alps had to gradually familiarize themselves with these types of composition, the two different traditions with time, arriving at a common musical language. The process started from the bottom, not from the top, and the game was played on the sonic field of music for entertainment. Here, in a situation of equal standing, the secular compositions of masters such Josquin are confronted with the Giustiniane, a last, archaic, flowering of the trecento school that comes from an uninterrupted tradition of singing; and frottole, representing the latest transformation of the stile italiano, are found next to complicated Northern chansons combinatives. As the years go on, the bulk of the “Italian style” compositions diversify into a multitude of forms, and their “ethnic” origins, more imaginary than real, are emphasized: songs alla montanara or alla bergamasca; villotte, veneziane; imitations of street theater or the festivities for Carnival. The Moresca, of pagan origin, transformed into a depiction of the battle between Moor and Christian, becomes one of the most common theatrical dance-forms of the early Renaissance. To this brew is added the vast repertory of poetry sung all’improvviso: fixed forms such as the capitolo, the ode and the strambotto.

Two programs In honor of the 500th Anniversary of Jean Calvin’s birth:

Le droict chemin & De tout mon couer t’exalteray
Popular devotion between Reformation and Counter Reformation

10 performers:

buy the CD

René Zosso: voice, hurdy gurdy
Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Raphaël Boulay, Paul Willenbrock: voice
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer
Federico Marincola: lute, mandora, cister, hurdy gurdy

De tout mon couer t’exalteray

6 performers:
Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer

The founders of the Reform movement would not only revolutionize the religious life of their followers, but their musical life as well. Popular devotion was encouraged on both fronts, and in French-speaking areas, the Noël would be used as an arm of the Counter-Reformation. The authors (or gatherers? - perhaps singing devotional texts to timbres originated to some degree as a popular practice) of the first Noël collections would mostly use models from the chanson rustique repertoire. And while the music performed in the Catholic and Reform churches of the time must have presented an enormous contrast (professionally-performed polyphony at its height, as opposed to psalms sung in unison by the congregation) the music used in lay worship was quite similar: psalm-settings and motets; chansons spirituelles and Noëls. In any case, private devotion on both sides was a reaction to, as well as an important facet of, the general empowerment of the Upper-Middle Classes: perhaps the two faces of 16th Century Christian worship were not so different after all.

La istoria de Purim io ve racconto
Music and Poetry of the Jews in Renaissance Italy

7 – 9 performers:

buy the CD

Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Enrico Fink: voice, recitation
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione, cetra
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer
(Elisabetta Benfenati: renaissance guitar)
(Federico Marincola: lute, colascione)

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, Northern Italy was the confrontation point between a variety of Jewish communities: the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazy from North of the Alps; the Sepharadi, who found exile in Italy there after a series of expulsions from Spain, Sicily, Portugal and the Kingdom of Naples; and the Italikim, who spoke Italian and traced their presence in Italy back to the Roman Empire.

This program is dedicated to the musical and poetic legacy of the Jewish communities of Renaissance Italy, which present a vast, entertaining and cohesive repertoire, the exuberant result of the fertile crossover, fed by the confrontation between different cultures, made possible by one of the rare moments of peaceful cohabitation and mutual respect between Jews and their neighbors. In Mantua, a Jewish theatrical group entertained at the Gonzaga court, and throughout Italy, the mainstream population would visit the Jewish quarter to observe the festivities for Jewish Carnival, Purim. Among enlightened clerics, there was a real curiosity about Jewish learning and practice, while Jewish musicians, composers, theatrical troupes, directors, costume makers, dancing masters, poets and playwrites abounded throughout the peninsula.

Two 16^th Century Purim plays have come down to us written in sung poetic forms which still survive in the oral tradition of Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria. Written in Italian, but in Hebrew characters, they are designed, in particular, for the women of the congregation, who may have been able to read Hebrew characters without necessarily being well-versed in the language itself. Although no music has survived, a reconstruction has been made possible by borrowing the archaic melodies sung by the modern day housewives, farmers, craftsmen and factory workers who have lovingly conserved the tradition of the sung ottava rime and Maggio. Clearly archaic liturgical and para-liturgical melodies drawn from Jewish communities from throughout Italy, and songs from the short-lived but vigorous flourishing of Yiddish (with a Latin lilt) on the peninsula have been combined with dance music of the era, in an attempt to recreate the rich musical life, from synagogue to celebration, of the Jews of Renaissance Italy.

Program created with the support of the

Lo mio servente core
Tradition and avant-garde in music at the time of Dante Alighieri

7 performers:

buy the CD

Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: viuola, voice
Enrico Fink: voice, recitation
Marco Ferrari: shawm, recorder, double flute, zampogna
Avery Gosfield: recorders, double flute, pipe and tabor
Francis Biggi: cetra
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer

From the thirst for experimentation of the first polyphonic composers of the Trecento, to the primitive two-part pieces sung in isolated local churches, we find evidence of a repertoire where the attraction of the new exists side by side with a powerful archaic tradition. This program alternates music and recited texts: contemporary chronicles, anecdotes taken from 14th and 15th century novellieri, verses from the Divine Comedy, a 14th century recipe for lasagna: a panorama peopled with irascible friars, ill-tempered blacksmiths, lovesick bourgeois, curious monks, and beautiful ladies little interested in romantic reveries.

Mundi Splendor
Music in Venice at the Waning of the Middle Ages

6 performers:
Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: recorders, shawm, double flute, pipe and tabor
Francis Biggi: viola da mano, colascione
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer

In the mosaic of constantly bickering local powers that was Italy in the late Middle Ages, Venice would have its own destiny, that also influenced the development of the city's musical and cultural life. The rise of an oligarchy which held to the Republican ways of Ancient Rome would keep the citizen's government from shifting into noble hands, guaranteeing a shared administration of power, even if limited to a few important families. Therefore, the necessity of displaying the power of one's own household by highly visible acts of patronage was not one of the principal preoccupations of the Venetian aristocracy. At the end of the Middle Ages, the driving force of Venetian musical life was not private chapels, but rather the schools attached to the various religious institutions. The 15th Century was a formidable period in the history of Italian music: an era in which the diffusion of international styles and repertoires stood side by side to the flowering of strongly colored local forms, the affirmation of a lively local tradition well aware of its own uniqueness. It was the blending of these two perspectives which would give birth to the great art of the Italian Renaissance that became a model for all of Europe. Venice, the most cosmopolitan of all Italian cities, and the most jealously tied to its own ancient republican identity, would be one of the most important influences for this transformation.

Il Moro di Granata
Anima mediterranea in the Music of the Italian Renaissance

9-10 performers:
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, viola d’arco
Gloria Moretti, Raphaël Boulay: voice
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: renaissance winds
Francis Biggi: lute, colascione, cetra; Elisabetta Benfenati: renaissance guitar
Federico Marincola: lute, colascione
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer
(Taylan Cihan: saz, lute)

Is the music of the Mediterranean an inheritance from the Arab world alone, one of the numerous gifts that the East has given to the world through time? Or is it the result of more than a thousand years of a collective oeuvre, the fusion of a shared sentiment that has grown through contact and exchange? The two concepts are probably both correct: the Islamist expansion brought new ideas and new ideas to Western music, fusing to forms and styles already found there. Common ground and incomprehension, conflicts and fertile exchange: the relationship between Orient and Occident has always been difficult and painful, harmonious and generous. Communication goes on, even in times of war: conflict itself becomes a source of mutual knowledge. The history of music in Italy perfectly reflects this problematic and inalienable interchange. As a bridge between Central Europe and the Mediterranean, a border between East and West, Italy absorbed a myriad of musical idioms. Il Moro di Granata is a program that fuses music and texts drawn from different eras and different repertoires, exploring the traces of the Mediterranean tradition in Italian music, in the crossover between art and tradition. At times, it touches on the dark moments that serve to demonstrate how long and difficult the road towards tolerance and comprehension has been, and how far we still have to go.

En Chantan m’aven a membrar
Troubadour, Trouvère and Minnesanger from Rhone to Rhine

7 performers:

buy the CD

Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice, medieval fiddle
Paul Yuval Adam: voice, medieval fiddle
Avery Gosfield: fluier, pipe and tabor
Marco Ferrari: shawm, bagpipe, drone flute
Francis Biggi: cittern
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer

Regionalism, multilingualism, cross-cultural exchange: the key-words of modern Europe were already reality in the Middle Ages. A select group of composer-poets with distinctive personalities would animate the musical life of Mittel-Europa from the late 12th century on: Rudolph von Fénis-Neuchâtel, who, inspired by Folquet de Marseille, Guiot de Provins, and Peire Vidal, would try his hand at adapting their works to the German language; Konrad von Würzburg, whose earthier, more direct style could be seen as the culmination of a more native tradition, and Gautier d’Espinal, musician and poet of quality.

6 performers:
Gloria Moretti: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice and medieval fiddle
Avery Gosfield: fipple flutes, pipe and tabor, medieval flute
Marco Ferrari: fipple flutes, bagpipe, shawm
Francis Biggi: lute, citola
Massimiliano Dragoni: percussion, hammer dulcimer

Among the most well known and most played repertoires in medieval music, the Cantigas de Santa Maria generate numerous questions, many of which have yet to be answered. The way in which the repertoire took shape, as well as the difficulties confronted when trying to date the four manuscripts in which it is found, represent a unique phenomenon in the history of medieval music and its interpretation. On the one hand, the compelling melodies, colorful narratives, and, last but not least, the vivacious image of life at King Alfonso’s court transmitted by the magnificent miniatures found in the Cantigas sources, have contributed towards making them the most popular and frequently performed repertoire in medieval music. On the other hand, numerous questions regarding the origins of and the notation used in the collections remain unanswered. Making use of the latest musicological and textual research, Lucidarium affronts the Cantigas from a perspective which underlines not only their evocative aspects, still striking to today’s audience, but their strong cosmopolitan tendencies as well. The court of Alfonso the Wise, son of a sainted King and of Beatrice of Hohenstaufen, an open and cultured monarch, more knowledgeable in astrology than in politics, defeated pretender to the Western Empire, was a place which brought together intellectuals, musicians and poets not only from all over his kingdom, but from throughout Europe as well.