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David C Bradley
david c. bradley
Love Letters from Italy. Drew Minter, countertenor; Gwendolyn Toth, director ARTEK/458 Strings. (Lyrichord Discs, Inc. LEMS 8026 [DDD]. Playing Time 68:45).
Frescobaldi: Aria di passacaglia, Toccata, Toccata per liuto; d'India: Odi quel rosignuolo; da Gagliano: Io vidi in terra; Monteverdi: Lettera amorosa, Pianto della Madonna; Sances: Cantada voce sola sopra il passacaglio; Gabrielli: Ricercar; Cesti: Rimbombava.
With this recording, Lyrichord Discs continues its outstanding service to early music fanciers. Within the traditions of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, earlier CDs have taken varying approaches, including recordings of sacred music, dance music, and historic singers within the genre, e.g., Russell Oberlin. As clearly indicated by the rifle, this particular disc takes an emotional and regional approach; the musical styles represented are quite diverse, although all are drawn from the seventeenth century.
With the invention of opera having occurred at the beginning of the 1600s, it is hardly surprising to find a number of selections typical of the Florentine Camerata style appearing here. Examples include "Io vidi in terra" by da Gagliano and "Odi quel rosignuolo" by d'India, while the major figure of Claudio Monteverdi is represented by two pieces, "Lettera amorosa" and "Pianto della Madonna" (the most interesting of these two will probably be the latter, the Latin sacred Vting of the famous "Lamento d'Arianna" from Arianna ). Other period styles putting in an appearance include music based on passacaglia ground patterns and the recitativearia format.
Above and apart from the stylistic considerations, however, there is an emphasis here on the art of the virtuoso. In addition to the above-mentioned Florentine Camerata's insistence on clarity of text, the Council of Trent (the main Vment of the Counter Reformation, which began meeting in 1542) charged composers of sacred music with not obscuring texts. In this case the intent was to move away from the perceived sensuality of extensive polyphony to a more restrained spiritual musical experience. In both cases the soloist pronouncing the text became the most important element in the compositional fabric leading toward the cult of the virtuoso singer; this tendency was soon followed by instrumental soloists.
In the selections presented here, the importance of the vocal soloist would lead the listener to expect an outstanding one....