Programmes and projects
monteverdi
La sera del Combattimento
La Sera del Combattimento is a reconstruction of the first performance of this masterpiece, following Monteverdi’s account. A man of few words, Monteverdi fortunately left us an account of that evening where he gives precious indications for performance. Let’s translate him: “Combattimento in Musica di Tancredi & Clorinda, described by Tasso; If you want to perform it in a representative genre, you should let enter suddenly (after having sung some madrigals without any gesture) Clorinda from the side of the room where the Music will be performed”. So, a crucial information is first of all that before the Combattimento, in order to enhance its novelty and its theatrical dimension, the musicians should sing some Madrigals without any gesture, thus not in the representative way. Polyphony is the perfect prelude to the dramma in musica because, thanks to the contrast of styles, the theatrical Combattimento will then have a much stronger effect when performed after the polyphonic madrigals.
ensemble
14 musicians
monteverdi
Vespro della
Beata Vergine
Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine is a pinnacle of Western art. Its author is often considered an extraordinary innovative composer, if not the initiator of a new era. Surely this is true of opera and accompanied monody and it is undeniable that Monteverdi played a vital role in the development of modern music. However, if we consider the polyphonic repertoire, the relationship with the past is stronger than the legacy it leaves for the future. And this is especially true for Vespers. This wonderful work is in fact the apotheosis of a long and vast polyphonic tradition that dates back to two centuries earlier. All the subtle rhythmic games, the very structure of the polyphonic writing, the importance of the cantus firmus are all elements that come from the past. Not only that, but strange as it may seem to us, Monteverdi’s Vespers do not leave a lasting legacy.
Given La Fonte Musica’s training and experience in 15th and 16th century polyphony, it is natural for us to interpret the Vespers as a work rooted in the past. An authentic apotheosis of the sacred polyphonic tradition.
ENSEMBLE
35 musicians
Musica dalla Commedia di Dante
DanteNova
“Music […] draws to itself human spirits, which are vapors of the heart; so that they almost cease from any operation, that the whole soul almost runs to the sensitive spirit that receives the sound!”
Dante, Convivio, chap II
MUSIC
Antonio Zacara da Teramo, Paolo da Firenze, Guillaume de Machaut, Francesco Landini, Matteo da Perugia, Jacopo da Bologna, Anthonello da Caserta, Johannes Ciconia
Dante died seven hundred years ago. In the same years Ars Nova was born. Dante probably did not see any Ars Nova piece written, but he certainly listened to the polyphony of his time, which in those years was finding a new way to be written. Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris published in those years their treatises on musical notation, which they called Ars Nova, a new way of writing music that would pave the way for a century of great musical creativity. The pieces that make up our programme come from this century, the century of Ars Nova.
Dantenova therefore: an incandescent star of colors, fantasy, imagination. That of Dante and that of the Ars Nova masters.
Music accompanies the otherworldly journey that Dante imagines to carry out in the Comedia. Our concert retraces many of the places of the poem where music resounds: from Inferno silences full of laments and cries, through Purgatorio love songs and sung prayers, to Paradiso angelic concerts.
ENSEMBLE
7 to 9 musicians
l'arte di Antonio Zacara da Teramo
Enigma Fortuna
MUSIC
Antonio Zacara da Teramo
Antonio Zacara da Teramo (ca. 1360/1416?) is certainly one of the most important Italian composers between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His music presents a variety of styles, registers and forms as wide as possible. He was also one of the most prolific, talented and widely copied composers of his time. It is perhaps the one that had the greatest influence on the next generation, an authentic bridge between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Enigma Fortuna is an invitation to discover the great vitality and eccentricity of his music, where one finds enigmas, oracles, obsessive variations on the theme of Fortune, proverbs, popular mottos, dialectal words, the sarcastic, ironic, often self-deprecating tone, autobiographical lyrics, a neverending melodic invention and a great rhythmic audacity.
A very talented visionary artist who must become part of our cultural landscape.
ENSEMBLE
7 to 10 musicians
l'arte di johannes ciconia
Le Ray au Soleyl
MUSIC
Johannes Ciconia
“Le Ray au Soleyl” is the title of a heraldic canon by Johannes Ciconia. The canon describes Giangaleazzo Visconti’s uniform, the “radia magna”, the sun with its rays on which a white turtledove stands out. Ciconia’s music is indeed a sunbeam, a ray of light which continues to shine 650 years after his birth. His joyful and solemn motets, the melancholic lines of his songs, the clarity of the declamation and the fervor which sound off his Glorias and Credos belong to the highest rank of the musical art.
ENSEMBLE
6 to 11 musicians