Featuring: Violin, Recorder/Dulcian, Cornetto, 2 Sackbuts, Violone, Theorbo, Viola da Gamba, Organ, Percussion
Music in Europe in the crossing period between 16th and 17th century, especially in what concerns instrumental repertoire, met the extraordinary creativity of composers willing to express their art, creating new musical styles and following new fashions. Instrumental music in England at Shakespeare’s time flourishes through the cheerful style of the “musica figurata”: music imitating nature, reproducing images, expressing characters through particular effects. An enjoyable example of musical rhetoric is to be found in the english repertoire of Masque Dances: true little gems of musical rhetoric which were most of the time meant to be interposed between acted scenes in english spoken theater. The origin of the masque genre is to be found in court entertainments and folk tradition, as the secular thematics of their titles suggest, often connected to a magical, enchanted sur-reality, tracing the themes used in theater plays. For example, “The Satyres Masque” by Robert Johnson expresses with lively virtuosic passages the cheeky character of the Satyr, mythological companion of Pan and Dionisius; “the Second Witches Dance” by Robert Johnson includes some totally unexpected changes of rhythm which embody the totally unpredictable character of the witches, and it’s connected with Shakespeare’s Macbeth; The Tempest also suggests to some rhetorical instrumental effects evoking nature, and it’s to be linked to Shakespeare’s homonym theater Play. In this program, Concerto Scirocco explores the fine rhetoric and the great variety of english early music repertoire for broken consort, tracing a connection between italian and english early baroque style. The bound and reflections between those two cultures is strong, not only in the rhetorical identity of instrumental music but also in compositional structures. While in Italy the basso ostinato becomes one of the most popular secular forms for instrumental music, in England we can find its double in the ground tradition, structured on the same idea: a series of ornaments over a repeating ground-bass.
But where those cultural connection casualties or direct consequences of some sort of “musical contamination”? Not to be forgotten: a great part of the Bassano family migrated from Venice to London, establishing themselves as court musicians and instrument makers for Henry VIII already in 1525, being part of the King’s shawm and sackbuts consort. The Era in which the Bassanos migrated to England is undoubtedly a crucial moment in terms of development for instrumental music in Italy, especially in the venetian Area from which they came from. Ganassi testifies in his La Fontegara the great ability of italian musicians and the accurate and highly developed ornamentation technique of the diminutions, which surely contributed to the fame of the Italian School through Europe. Probably the migration of italian masters to England did indeed contribute in creating a sort of “musical melting pot” where the most innovative techniques of instrumental music coming from Italy, met together with cultural backgrounds and traditions from both sides, creating a musical style full of rhetoric, rich in forms and with a very fresh and appealing identity.
John Adson (1587-1640) Courtly Masking Aire
Anonimous The Tempest Masque, division Woodycock
Johann Grabbe (1585-1655) Pavana
John Hilton (1575-1628) Fantasia
Robert Johnson (1583-1633) The Satyr Masque
William Brade (1560-1630) Coral
Anonimous The Second Witches Dance , Division
Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) The Silver Swan
John Adson Courtly Maquing Aires n. 16, n. 17
Matthew Locke (1621-1677) Suite n. 6
Robert Parson (1535-1571/72) The Song Called Trumpet
John Hilton Fantasia III
Anonym The first of the Ladyes , The Nymph Dance
Thomas Lupo (1671-1627) The Lord Hays His Maske
Wiliam Brade Des Rotschencken Tanz, Pilligrienen Tanz
Hugh Aston (1485-1558) Hugh Ashton’s Maske
Anonymous Paul’s Steeple Division
Giovanni Bassano (1558-1617) Fantasia n. 8
John Hilton Fantasia I
Anthony Holborne (1545-1602) Almaine the night watch
Photo@Alejandro Gomez Lozano
CONCERTO SCIROCCO 