Era: Baroque
Year: 1640 (likely published, written in early 1600s)
Form: Keyboard Music in multiple forms
Score: 80 (this is just being harsh... probably more like an 83.7)
Thoughts: While definitely amazing for it's time (nearly 80 years before Bach/Handel really wrote their impressive keyboard music), I think the resolves it made often "dumbed" it down if that makes any sense, but it makes sense for the time given the polyphony styles resolving on the tonic, etc. Still quite good.
Girolamo Frescobaldi was a major composer from the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods whose keyboard works rank among the most important of his time. His sacred and secular vocal music is generally assessed to be less important but still significant. Frescobaldi appears to have learned much of his deft contrapuntal skill and harmonic boldness from his teacher Luzzaschi. The 12 Fantasie (1608) are notable for their brilliantly wrought counterpoint, but also for their somewhat arid intellectual character. The two books of Toccate, from 1615 and 1627, are both innovative, with the latter set showing greater structural complexity.
Frescobaldi was born in Ferrara probably in mid-September, 1583. His first teacher was likely his father, believed to be an organist. Girolamo became something of a child prodigy on the organ and was taken on as a pupil by Court organist Luzzasco Luzzaschi, who was also a respected composer.
At 14 Frescobaldi became organist at the Academia della Morte in Ferrara. With a prodigious talent and an apparently strong desire to further his career, he decided to travel to Rome in about 1599. Not much is known about his early years there. From January till June, 1607, he served as organist at Santa Maria in Trastevere. He might have continued in the position but for an offer from his friend and arts patron, Guido Bentivoglio, Archbishop of Rhodes. Bentivoglio departed Rome for Flanders on June 11, 1607, with Frescobaldi accompanying him as part of his entourage, intending to enter his service as a musician with duties not entirely clear. In 1608 the young composer's first works were published, a collection of madrigals and three canzonas, which appeared in Alessandro Raverji's publication, Canzoni.
Frescobaldi stayed in Brussels for less than a year, returning to Rome to assume the post of organist (October 31, 1608) at the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's in Rome, thanks to the efforts of the influential Bentivoglio family. The organist's position was not a high-paying one, but finances were hardly a problem now: with his appointment to St. Peter's came service for Enzo Bentivoglio, ambassador to Rome from Ferrara. That position involved teaching the musicians in the ambassador's musical group or concertino.
In about 1612, Frescobaldi began employment for the wealthy Cardinal Aldobrandini, who paid him nearly twice the salary he earned from his organist post at St. Peter's. On February 18, 1613, Frescobaldi married Orsola del Pino, who had already given birth to his son and was pregnant with a second child. With publication in 1615 of ten Ricercari and five Canzoni, both for keyboard, Frescobaldi's growing prominence clearly placed him in the forefront of Italian musicians.
For the next 13 years, the composer would experience his most productive period, turning out collections of ricecars, canzonas and other works. In 1624, his 12 Capriccios for keyboard appeared, and three years later, volume two of his Toccatas. On November 28, 1628, the composer departed to become Court organist in Florence, having been granted a leave from St. Peter's. Not much is known about his six-year stint in Florence, though he produced the two volumes of arias and other vocal works there, Arie musicali. The composer returned to his St. Peter's post in April, 1634.
Frescobaldi's keyboard collection, Canzoni da sonare, was published in late that same year. Other important publications would come now as well, including the 12 Toccate, (two volumes) of 1637, which were reissues of the earlier ones. That same year he also began teaching Vienna Court organist Johann Jacob Froberger, who would study with him until 1641. Frescobaldi died on March 1, 1643.
I always liked Frescobaldi, and this recording fits right in with my impression of him.
FischmanRockMonster, JazzMeister, Bluesboy,ClassicalMasterProfile Land of Enchantment
Era: Baroque
Year: 1638
Form: See title...
Score: 80
Thoughts: If nothing else, the soprano in Miserere was piercingly beautiful. It took me a bit to get back almost to Renaissance music as there were no instruments in this piece, only vocal polyphony. The ocean of beautiful sound must've been so beautiful to listen to live.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1633
Form: I actually couldn't figure this one out...
Score: 86
Thoughts: This was lively and a beautiful change to what I've been listening to. The arrangements seem near modern, but likely are building off Troubadour type music of previous times. At the same time it had some kind of cohesiveness to it. Something I'd like to come back to.
Quote:
Reviewer: Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
Abridged version-:
"Figueras's approach in the intricate and colourful melodic strands of the 'concerted' pieces is impetuous but effectively paced too. The result is at times little short of spellbinding: Su la cetra amorosa is executed with all the considerable virtuosity, energy and emotional intensity it deserves, complemented moreover by an exciting and fluent dialogue with a solo cornett. She thrives on the momentum of the ostinato bass, especially one which is treated to such free articulation and improvisatory liberties as this. Also impressive is her ability to judge the fine line between comedy and despair in Quando gli uccelli portaranno i zoccoli (''When birds wear clogs''), where Merula's slightly bizarre sense of humour and a proven sense of irony are exhibited to the full. If there is a drawback to Figueras's freestyle it is the tendency to force her tone, especially in simpler strophic forms whose abstraction can highlight deficiencies in intonation and tonal quality. Ensemble can be a little ropey, too, but the overall richness of musical timbre and freedom of expression is what ultimately prevails. Well worth investigating."
http://www.classicalacarte.net/Fiches/9862.htm
Era: Baroque
Year: 1629
Form: Sacred vocal music in various forms
Score: 85
Thoughts: This was quite the body of work. Lively and beautiful, and for a 90 min run time it was never dull due to it's lush orchestrations.
Thanks Fischman! Glad those samples were pleasing :). Unfortunately I can only leave a spotify link for this album. Only 10 more albums of the Baroque period left to go!
Era: Baroque
Year: 1615
Form: Madrigal and Motett
Score: 83
Thoughts: It was quite beautiful to have a pair of soprano voices soar above these decent arrangements. Soprano soloists throughout time have often created chilling performances, and these "duets" didn't disappoint, however the arrangements seemed to be a bit lackluster to create anything amazing.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1615
Form: Madrigal and Motet
Score: 83
Thoughts: This had quite an arrangement beautiful brass. A clear bridge between the Renaissance and Early Baroque. Often lived in a world of beauty/solace or lively celebration.
Nice arrangement indeed! Would have been very cool to hear that when it was new.
I also enjoyed the Monteverdi, which is cool because I've never really taken to him before, probably because most of my exposure to him thus far has been relative to his place in the early development of opera, a form I don't pay as much attention to.
RoundTheBendI miss the comfort in being sadProfile Ground Control
Yeah - that was a decent Monteverdi album. I wish I could say the same about this one and I'd prefer Gabrieli over everything I've heard of Monteverdi even if his name dominates this early Baroque era.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1614
Form: Madrigal
Score: 75
Thoughts: I didn't really find much redeeming here to be honest. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood from it, but usually these vocal performances should open me up to this human experience connected by vibrating human spirit, but I really just didn't get that from this... not sure if I can blame the performance or the work as it's my first listen.
From this other performance, I think it's the work...
Era: Baroque
Year: 1610
Form: Vespers
Score: 86
Thoughts: Wow, this was actually quite amazing, even for someone who typically doesn't dig this type of music. It's dynamic, powerful, melodic, personal... lots of things and the word "great" I guess can sum up those things. I didn't really beg for more (otherwise I'd rate this much higher), but I did walk away feeling like I was taken on quite the journey of humanity.
The term “Vespers” (evening prayers) is taken from the Hours of the Divine Office, a set of daily prayers of the Catholic Church which have remained structurally unchanged for 1500 years. In scale, Monteverdi’s Vespers was the most ambitious work of religious music before Johann Sebastian Bach. This piece includes soloists, chorus, and orchestra and has both liturgical and extra-liturgical elements.
Monteverdi’s Marian Vespers of 1610 was his first sacred work after his first publication twenty-eight years prior, and stands out for its assimilation of both old and new styles, although it cannot be specifically classified as prima pratica or seconda pratica, per se. The Vespers were published in July 1610, in combination with a six-voice mass which parodied a motet of Nicolas Gombert; In illo tempore loquante Jesu. Today, over four hundred years later, the precise intentions of this large work are not clearly known or understood. This has been a great topic of debate among musicologists for decades, and it has even been suggested by Graham Dixon that Monteverdi’s setting of the Vespers is more suited towards use for the feast of Saint Barbara, claiming, for example, that the texts taken from Song of Songs are applicable to any female saint. He goes on to write that formatting the Vespers to fit a Marian feast made the work more “marketable”. There are several facts that support this view: there are just two Marian songs in the whole work (Audi Coelum and Ave Maris Stella); the sonata could very easily be rearranged to any saint’s name; and the text of the Duo Seraphim is connected with Saint Barbara (because she is generally connected with Trinity).
The Vespers was first printed in Venice in 1610 when the composer was working at the ducal court in Mantua. Historical record does not indicate whether Monteverdi actually performed the Vespers in either city; the work may have been written as an audition piece for posts at Venice (Monteverdi became maestro di cappella at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice in 1613) and Rome (where the composer was not offered a post).
The Vespers is monumental in scale, and requires a choir large enough and skillful enough to cover up to 10 vocal parts in some movements and split into separate choirs in others while accompanying seven different soloists during the course of the piece. Interestingly, solo parts are included for violin and cornett, but the ripieno instrumentation is not specified by Monteverdi. Additionally, he did not specify a set of plainchant antiphons to insert before each psalm and the concluding Magnificat. This allows the performers to tailor the music according to the available instrumental forces and the occasion of the performance (the particular feast day’s liturgy would have included suggested antiphons that could be chanted before Monteverdi’s psalm settings). Another example of tailoring to the forces available is the fact that the collection includes two versions of the Magnificat, one of which is scored for a smaller group of musicians than the other. Some scholars have argued that this suggests that the Vespers was not intended as a single work, but it is generally performed as such.
The historical interest of this work is almost as great as its inherent qualities. Vespers are part of the daily Offices, or Canonical Hours, of the church, music for the Offices including psalms (with antiphons), hymns, and canticles, as well as chanted lessons (with responsories). Although inspired by the Church Office, Monteverdi’s Vespers in many ways transcends the original concept, perfectly exemplifying the transition between austere Renaissance polyphony and sheer Baroque splendor. Monteverdi makes his characteristic contribution to sacred music in a bold, almost operatic, style, complete with daring stereophonic and echo effects, and includes a suite of instrumental dances, concerti sections for both voices and orchestra, and a love song. To what extent this is liturgical music is debatable in view of the choice of texts, which some in Monteverdi’s time considered blasphemous. Completed in 1610, the Vespers was written for the court of the Gonzaga family in Mantua, where Monteverdi was employed from 1590 to 1612, and dedicated to Pope Paul V. But the composition’s true home is undoubtedly the cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, where Monteverdi was appointed maestro di cappella in 1613. Indeed, the Vespers could well have been conceived with its echoing spaces, galleries, balconies, organ, and choir lofts in mind.
The sections contain striking contrasts, but the unity and continuity of Monteverdi’s grand design is maintained theatrically as well as musically. The overture, for choir and orchestra, is manifestly operatic, and close to that of Monteverdi’s first opera, Orfeo – an upsurge of joyous energy, interposed by an orchestral toccata and ending with a jubilant Alleluia. The instrumentation (cornets, sackbuts, a variety of single and double reeds, recorders, strings, organ, and harpsichord) is, with the exception of the instrumental ritornelli, mainly intended to contribute to the formal structure of the choral sections, coloring the choir in the manner of organ stops, as in the “Dixit Dominus,” “Laetatus sum,” “Audi, coelum,” and the beginning and end of the closing Magnificat, the climax of the whole work. The ways in which Monteverdi treats the cantus firmus by incorporating it into the counterpoint of the choral writing, as in “Dixit Dominus” (Psalm 109), is not found in earlier choral literature, nor is the flowing, unfettered parlando (recitation) style used in “Nigra sum,” a metrically free poem with allusions to the biblical Song of Solomon. The concerto “Due Seraphim” is probably the most interesting section in the Vespers. It is set for two “answering” voices – a sort of singing competition for angels – and almost exceeds the limits of human vocal technique. The choral writing is also demanding in its splendor and complexity, much of it in six, seven, and, as in the psalm “Laudate pueri,” eight parts; yet the simplicity of the two-part hymn Ave Maris stella is also among the many treasures of this magnificent work.
Back in 2010, Gardiner had already conducted the Vespro at Versailles’ Chapelle Royale, winning broad acclaim; this is the reason why it was decided to film the 2014 concert. The title page of the first edition is inscribed “ad Sacella sive Principum Cubicula accomodata Opera” (for use in princely rooms and chapels). According to the conductor, Versailles Chapelle Royale is the perfect place to perform this masterpiece, because the spatial disposition makes the audience experience the feeling of Renaissance concerts: the architecture and the various levels enhance the echo and the dialogs between the singers, performing from different heights.
Era: Baroque
Year: 1610 & 1650
Form: Mass
Score: 83
Thoughts: What I loved about it is how it swelled like water drops in unison, yet some kind of polyrhythm you barely notice... so smooth and beautiful. I think this genre of vocal music though just isn't my cup of tea. So while beautiful, I'm not sure I'll come back.
This recording has the aim to offer a glimpse of the musical and personal itinerary that took composer Claudio Monteverdi from Mantua to Venice with the performance of two Masses, the Messa a quattro voci da cappella and the Missa da cappella a sei voci “In illo tempore”, and the Adoramus a sei voci.
Missa in illo tempore and Missa a quattro voci: Composition
Messa a quattro voci
The Messa a quattro voci was probably composed for a Christmas celebration in St Mark’s Basilica in Venice because Monteverdi had to compose a mass for Christmas Eve as part of his duties as maestro di cappella. The Mass was first published in 1650 by Alessandro Vincenti, who collected «the sacred relics of the works of the most excellent Monteverdi», but the exact date of composition is unknown. The Mass has been composed in stile antico with a basso continuo (the organ, something that at the time does not contradict the definition “a cappella”), but Monteverdi used also more modern compositional techniques, as it is possible to notice in the vocal duets and trios.
Messa a sei voci “In illo tempore”
The Messa a sei voci “In illo tempore” (1610) is Monteverdi’s first large-scale attempt to compose music in the imitative polyphonic style, a practice extremely popular among composers of the time both for paying homage to other composers or to use consciously previous material to create a new composition. The Mass is an austere and archaic work in many regards and the most evident is the choice to write it for six voices, a custom that was becoming unusual for polyphonic writing.
A contemporary witness of the composition of the Mass can be found in a letter, dated 16 July 1610, that Bassano Casola, Monteverdi’s assistant as choirmaster at the court of Mantua, addressed to Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, were it is recorded that «Monteverdi is having printed an a capella Mass for six voices written with much study and toil, since he had to continually manipulate every note through all the parts, always further strengthening the 8 themes from Gombert’s motet In illo tempore [published in 1554]. And he is also having printed with it some psalms for the Vespers of the Virgin, with various and diverse manners of invention and harmony, all on a cantus firmus. He intends to come to Rome this autumn to dedicate them to His Holiness». The Mass, published in Venice together with the Vesper of the Blessed Virgin, was actually dedicated to Pope Paul V Borghese.
Adoramus te
Monteverdi composed the Adoramus te in 1620 to fulfill to another obligation as maestro di cappella that imposed him to provide new music for the festival of the Holy Cross and this motet reminds also of a significative aspect in Monteverdi’s life. Considering the reputation Monteverdi had acquired in the course of the years, it was not unusual that, his works were included in anthologies compiled by colleagues or former students. The Adoramus te, together with other motets written by Monteverdi a cappella with basso sequente, was part of the Libro primo de motetti in lode assembled by a Cremonese musician and Monteverdi’s pupil, Giulio Cesare Bianchi.
Missa in illo tempore and Missa a quattro voci: the Performance
The Ensemble Vocal Européen de la Chapelle Royale, directed by Philippe Herreweghe, offers an inspired and solemn performance of the Masses and of the motet, something that constitute the worth completion of the wide itinerary suggested by the selection of works. The sound is vividly captured and the voices reach the listener’s ears preserving intact their enchanting power – this is absolutely a right definition, especially when you take into consideration wonderful pieces as (I choose one of many) the Credo from the Messa In illo tempore, in which the chorus describes a progression that culminate with undisputable joy.
The clear expression of feeling is actually one of the best features of this recording, where Monteverdi’s music is performed with heartfelt sincerity and emotion and assumes a character of light immediateness. It is implicit that the Ensemble Vocal Européen de la Chapelle Royale sings very well and it is through the strict dialogue between the voices that this outcome is achieved. This is definitely one of the best presentations of Monteverdi’s music you can wish for.
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Fischman
RoundTheBend
