Magnificat

Click to continue reading “Why All This Music for Vespers?”

Click to continue reading “Polyphonic Vespers Music Before Monteverdi”

The sheer variety and magnificence of Monteverdi's 1610 collection is breathtaking, and in 1613, music from the Vespers may have served as part of Monteverdi's successful audition for the position of maestro di capella at the ducal church of St. Mark's in Venice, the most important church job in all of northern Italy. In this 1610 print, which also includes a conservative, even archaic, six-voice polyphonic mass, Monteverdi gathered the most diverse examples of modern musical style imaginable for his Vespers. Introducing the Vesper service is the solo plainchant versicle (Deus in adiutorium) followed by its massive, fanfare-like response with the full choir supported by a large instrumental ensemble of strings and brass. This response was reconstituted out of the fanfare introduction to Monteverdi's own first opera of 1607, Orfeo. Following the opening of the service, virtuoso solo and few-voiced motets sit side-by-side with the psalms featuring ...

Few musicians of the seventeenth century enjoyed the exalted status bestowed on Arcangelo Corelli (February 17, 1653- January 19, 1713). He was called the ‘new Orpheus of Our Times’ and the ‘divine Arc Angelo’, a clever pun on his Christian name and the Italian word for a bow (arco). The Englishman musician and writer Roger North described Corelli’s music as ‘transcendant’, ‘immortal’ and ‘the bread of life’ to musicians. Renowned as a virtuoso performer, an influential composer, and sought-after teacher, Corelli commanded respect and praise throughout Europe at the turn of the 18th century. The fifth child born to a prosperous family of landowners in Fusignano; Corelli’s first musical study was probably with the local clergy, then in nearby Lugo and Faenza, and finally in Bologna, where he went in 1666. In Bologna he studied with Giovanni Benvenuti and Leonardo Brugnoli, the former representing the disciplined style of the Accademia filarmonica ...

Claudio Monteverdi’s very earliest, youthful publications were sacred, devotional music: a set of Sacrae Cantiunculae published in 1582 when he was only fifteen, and a collection of Madrigali spirituali, issued in 1583. But once he became employed at the ducal court of Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua, probably in late 1590 or early 1591, his published works until 1610 consisted entirely of secular music: madrigals, scherzi musicali, and the opera Orfeo.  On September 1, 1610, however, he published a very large and elaborate collection of sacred music comprising a six-voice Missa in illo tempore in a conservative contrapuntal style and the brilliant and variegated Vespro della Beata Vergine employing every modern compositional technique imaginable in the early 17th century. The Mantuan secular works, including the unpublished but famous opera Arianna, were all connected to particular events and entertainments at court. However, we know from letters and other documents that the Missa in ...

The primary focus of our concerts this weekend is the music of Alessandro Grandi, including the modern premieres of the first cantatas from his 1620 collection Cantade et Arie a voce sola. We will also be playing instrumental music by several composers associated with Venice during Grandi’s tenure at St. Mark’s. It turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to re-visit some old "friends" like Cavalli's extraordinary Canzon a 3 from Musiche sacrae, and some music that's "new" to Magnificat. Though musicologists have speculated that Dario Castello probably worked at St. Mark's and probably played violin and/or cornetto, in fact nothing is known about him beyond his music, which was all published in Venice. The numerous reprints of his sonatas and canzoni as late as 1650 attest to his popularity and influence. We will perform the first of his two part sonatas "in stil moderno" published in 1629. More is known about ...

Click to continue reading “Grandi’s Cantatas – A Link with Improvisational Practice?”

San Francisco Classical Voice posted the following excellent preview by Steven Winn of Magnificat's upcoming concerts featuring the music of Alessandro Grandi. The original post is here. For anyone who cares about 17th-century music, 2010 is without question a Claudio Monteverdi year. The 400th anniversary of the composer’s ground-breaking and magisterial Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) of 1610 is a ripe occasion to program the sacred masterpiece of an artist deemed “the creator of modern music” by scholar Leo Schrade. It’s an opportunity that Magnificat Baroque wasn’t about to miss. The Bay Area ensemble concludes its 18th season with an April 23-25 slate of Vespers concerts. But before they get there, the troupe is embarked on an unusual and revealing side-trip through Monteverdi territory, with the composer’s lesser-known Venetian contemporary Alessandro Grandi as the destination. To make this journey even more enticing, Magnificat is offering a striking historical contrast ...

Click to continue reading “Alessandro Grandi’s Cantade et Arie a voce sola of 1620″

Click to continue reading “Magnificat to Perform Modern Premieres of the First Cantatas”

It has frequently been assumed that Grandi remained at San Marco until he accepted the position as chapel master at Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo in March 1627. However, there are many indications that he left St. Mark’s earlier. He had been relieved of his duties as maestro di canto at the seminary by March 1626, and Giovanni Rovetta makes clear in the dedication to his Salmi concertati (dedication dated 1 January 1626), that the post of vice-maestro at St. Mark’s was already vacant and that he had been performing some of the duties associated with the position: I hoped thereafter [i.e., after joining the cappella] to be able to exercise the duties of vice-maestro in the absence of the Maestro di Capella, this position already being vacant beforehand. Nor was the thought that I might succeed at this in vain, for since this need occurred shortly after I ...

In the second of a three part biographical essay, Steven Saunders discusses the decade that Alessandro Grandi spent in Venice, the period from which most of the music Magnificat will be performing in February was drawn. Grandi’s short tenure at the cathedral in Ferrara lasted at least through early 1617, since the second impression of the Primo libro de motetti (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti, 1617), as well as the second reprinting of the Madrigali concertati (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti, 1617) still identify him as maestro di cappella there.  By 31 August, however, he had returned to Venice to accept a post as a singer in the chapel of St. Mark’s at the relatively generous salary of eighty ducats per year.  He quickly assumed additional responsibilities, first as head of the Compagnia di San Marco (from 22 September 1617), then as the singing teacher at the seminario gregoriano (from March 1618), and finally as ...

Click to continue reading “Part 1: Alessandro Grandi in Ferrara”

While reveling in the beauty of music from the past, we seldom consider the “office politics” and professional competition that surrounded its composition and original performance. The goal of simultaneously creating beauty and paying rent has always been proven challenging and even among highly respected and gainfully employed artists, competition has frequently led to conflict. In his biographical sketch of Alessandro Grandi, published previously on this blog, Steven Saunders mentions the composer’s rapid rise to positions of authority at the Basilica of San Marco after returning from Ferrara in 1617. Among the positions that he attained was capo, or head, of the Compagnia di San Marco, a group not unlike a modern musicians’ union that organized singers for “freelance work” outside the basilica. Already in the 15th Century, musical activity outside the Basilica had been organized through confraternities known as Scuole Grandi. In his seminal article on organizations of musicians in Venice, ...

Magnificat's recording Vespro della Beata Vergine included a third CD called "Beyond the Notes" - Salmi Bizarri: Cozzolani and the music of Milanese convents. Patterned on the talks that precede each Magnificat concert, on this CD I discussed aspects of Cozzolani's life and music with musical examples. This introduction to the life and music of Cozzolani is now available in streaming audio here: [audio http://cozzolani.com/audio/SalmiBizarriPodcast.mp3] Click Here to download this podcast

In 2000, Magnificat and Musica Omnia began recording the complete works of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. The Cozzolani Project is a continuation and expansion of that venture that will eventually make all of Cozzolani's surviving compositions available as streaming audio and digital download. Magnificat's two CDs on the Musica Omnia label, Vespro della Beata Vergine and Messa Paschale included about half of Cozzolani's surviving works. As a result, four psalms, another setting of the Magnificat, and eight motets remain to be released in two double CD box sets. The recordings will be released both digitally and on physical CDs, with a complete recording of Cozzolani's 1650 collection Salmi a otto voci due for release and shipment in Spring 2010 with her 1642 collection Concerti Sacri, due in Spring 2011. The previously unreleased tracks will become available for individually as they are completed. In addition to the recordings we seek to promote a wider ...

Listen to Cozzolani's Music In November 2002, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani's birth, Magnificat hosted a conference on Women and Music in 17th Century Italy at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. In additions to two performances by Magnificat, four scholars presented papers on aspects of the role of women in musical life in Italy during the period. Robert Kendrick, whose research has contributed tremendously to our understanding of Cozzolani and the musical culture in Milan in general, contributed this article and has graciously granted permission to repost it here. We are here to examine the diversity of nuns’ culture in early modern Italy, on the immediate occasion of roughly the 400th anniversary of one sister’s birth—that of the Milanese Benedictine Chiara Margarita Cozzolani—and of the performances of her music brought to you this weekend by Magnificat. If there is anything that we have learned over the past ...

Listen to Cozzolani's Music We are fortunate that Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, unlike most of the nuns composing for convents in the 17th century, had the opportunity to publish some of her music. Had her works not been printed on the press of Venetian publisher Alessandro Vincenti, they would most likely have met the same fate of the vast majority of music recorded solely in manuscript – lost in a fire, sold as scrap paper, or simply discarded when musical fashions changed. Only two of Cozzolani's four published collections survived into modern times complete: Concerti Sacri … (1642), which includes the four voice Mass that Magnificat will perform in December, and Salmi a Otto Voci … (1650), from which the psalms in our Vespers programs are drawn. Sadly, the one part book from her first publication of motets Primavera di fiori musicali (1640) that survived into the 20th Century was destroyed in 1945 ...

Click to continue reading “Chiara Margarita Cozzolani: Celestial Siren”

Click to continue reading “To Draw from a Thousand Hearts a Thousand Sighs”