Love & Joy

The term “ricercar” comes from the Italian verb “ricercare” which means “to seek out”. It is indeed a musical unaccompanied composition in which a simple theme, stated in the beginning, is developed through melodic imitation. The constant permutations of the given motif reveal the fantastic improvisatory character of these short homophonic works. It is usually played as a prelude helping the musicians tune and open the sound of their instrument and preparing for the following musical work.

Domenico Gabrielli, an Italian composer and a virtuoso cellist from the city of Bologna, wrote in 1689 seven Ricercars for solo violoncello. They deserve special attention for they are the earliest known works written for solo cello and are therefore given a special position in the cello literature. Played on today’s concert on viola da gamba, the ricercare No. 3 opens with a playful and simple theme in D Major which quickly undergoes various developments until the final and virtuosic variation.

Carlo Farina was an Italian violinist and composer born in 1604 in Mantua, Italy. He spent most of his career in Germany and was first appointed Konzertmeister in 1625 in Dresden at the court of the Elector of Saxony where he worked under the renowned Heinrich Schütz. This is where most of his compositions, exclusively consisting of violin music, were published. Unlike his collections of dance pieces which reflect stylistic features from northern Germany, his violin sonatas can be seen as a tribute to his Italian heritage.

The early 1600s marked an evolution in violin literature. The violin’s function was not to solely accompany dances or double voices anymore. Along with a development in the lutherie itself, the instrument emancipated both musically and technically. Works by Farina, Marini, Uccellini and Fontana mark the emergence of the sonata genre in Italy. Today’s sonata by Farina was composed in 1626 and consists of a single movement with contrasting sections. We hear an alternance between virtuosic and flourishing runs, contemplative and ephemeral lyrical lines as well as dance-like passages. 

Isabella de Medici Orsino grew up in the famous and powerful Florentine family of the Medici. She received the finest education and was a lover of literature and music. The favorite child of her father, Cosimo de Medici, she was encouraged to sing while accompanying herself on the lute. In 1558, at the age of 15, Isabella married Paolo Giordano Orsini, a young nobleman from the important Roman family of the Orsini. Protected by her family and moreover her father, Isabella de Medici stayed in Florence where she was allowed to work on her art and enjoy the cultural life at the Medici court. The passing of her father in 1574 however marked the end of Isabella’s independent lifestyle in Florence. Summoned by her husband to join him in Rome, she was murdered in 1576 as an act of revenge for her secret relationship with Orsini’s cousin, Troilo. Lieta Vivo e contenta (I live happily and content) is her only known work. 

I live happily and content

For as long as my handsome sun

Shows me his right ray as usual

But it torments me so

If I see him vanish

That I would prefer to die endlessly

Spanish composer and music theorist Diego Ortiz spent most of his career in Naples where he became Maestro di Cappella at the Neapolitan Royal Chapel in 1553. His famous treatise Trattado de glossas sobre clausulas y otros generos de puntos en la musica de violones nuevamente puestos en luz was published in 1553 in Naples. This manual focuses on Spanish performance practice and on the rules of “divisions” - the technique consisting of transforming one single note into several shorter notes. The present ricercar featured on today’s program can be found in the second half of the work. It serves as a model for how one might improvise over a ground bass – a repeating pattern played by the bass line while the melody (here played on the viola da gamba) develops. 

Born in Venice in 1619, Barbara Strozzi was one of the most prolific composers of the Baroque period and is known for having published more secular music during her lifetime than any of her contemporaries. Even more remarkable is the fact that she did this without official patronage from any nobility or the Church. Her vocal works are notable for their expression of Strozzi’s own feelings, as well as their challenge of gender roles. Today’s cantata, Lagrime Mie (Tears Of Mine), written for a soprano voice, tells the story of a man weeping over his lost loved one. The recitative as well as the following aria include expressive melismas, chromatically melodic shapes and constant changing harmony which reveal the poignant character of the lament.  

My tears, why do you hold back?

Why do you not let burst forth the fierce pain

that takes my breath and oppresses my heart?

Because she looked on me with a favorable glance,

Lidia, whom I so much adore,

is imprisoned by her stern father.

Between two walls

the beautiful innocent one is enclosed,

where the sun's rays can't reach her;

and what grieves me most

and adds torment and pain to my suffering,

is that my love

suffers on my account.

And you, grieving eyes, you don't weep?

My tears, why do you hold back?

Alas, I miss Lidia,

the idol that I so much adore;

she's enclosed in hard marble,

the one for whom I sigh and yet do not die.

Because I welcome death,

now that I'm deprived of hope,

Ah, take away my life,

I implore you, my harsh pain.

But I well realize that to torment me

all the more

fate denies me even death.

Thus since it's true, oh God,

that wicked destiny

thirsts only for my weeping,

tears, why do you hold back?

We return, here with Giovanni Bassano, to the world of ornamentation. In the Baroque era ornamentation could be written out or left to the player’s discretion and many treatises from the 16th and 17th centuries provided instrumentalists with specific guidelines dedicated to this subject. This art of playing (or improvising) was already being practiced by musicians in classical antiquity and since the Middle Ages, musicians were expected to improvise and embellish their melodies.

Thirty years after Ortiz, Bassano published in 1585 a manual on ornamentation with the subtitle “for the practicing of diminutions on every sort of instrument”. The ricercata quarta is a freely composed single movement that commences on a slow five-note motif. Syncopations, flourishes and variations denote the improvisatory character of the piece and show a natural intensification of the writing until the florid runs concluding the movement.

Battista Fontana was born in 1589 in Brescia. Along with his contemporaries, he contributed to the advancements of violin technique and to the genre of the sonata. In the early 17th century, composers started to write pieces for one or two violins and basso continuo, allowing the violin to emancipate itself from the traditional consort group. The instrument’s role was no longer to accompany singers and dancers, but to reveal instead its solo voice. 

Fontana’s collection of 1641 includes 18 sonatas in one, two, three parts for “il Violino, o Cornetto, Fagotto, Chitarone, Violoncino o simile altro Istromento.” The six sonatas for solo violin and continuo are structured as single movements comprising various contrasting sections. 

The Sonata Seconda reflects Fontana’s ambivalent position between tradition and progress. The writing honors the past and its heritage of the monody, while displaying at the same time numerous virtuosic instrumental flourishes - commonly called divisions. Despite its relatively simple harmonic frame, the sonata exposes different characters and tempi (quasi-recitative; dance-like) and varies the affects in a refined manner. 

Born in Cremona, Italy in 1567, Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi was first hired as a court musician for the Duke Gonzaga of Mantua in 1590. After twenty years of dedicated service, he was finally appointed Kapellmeister in 1602. This coincides with an evolution in Monteverdi’s musical style inspired by the Humanist ideas that developed during the same era in Florence. A true emphasis on the text setting conveys in his music a strong sense of drama. Zefiro Torna is a madrigal – a polyphonic and secular song - included in Monteverdi's collection of Scherzi musicali (Musical jests) published in 1607. The particularity of this madrigal is the use of a ciaccona – a repeated harmonic bass line – for this charming duet for soprano and countertenor voices. 

Zephyr returns, and with sweet accents

enchants the air and ruffles the waves,

and murmuring among the green leaves,

makes the flowers dance to his sweet sound.

With garlanded hair, Phyllis and Chloris sing

love-songs, dear and joyful to them,

and through the mountains and valleys, high

and low, the echoing caves redouble their

music.

Dawn rises more glorious in the sky,

and the sun pours down the brightest gold,

embellishing with purer silver the sky-blue

mantle of Thetis.

Alone I wander through lonely and deserted

woods; of the ardour of two lovely eyes,

and of my torment, as my fortune decrees,

I by turns weep and sing.