La Morra, Theatro dei Cervelli, Francesco Corti – Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750 (2024) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

La Morra, Theatro dei Cervelli, Francesco Corti - Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750 (2024) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz] Download

This double album accompanies the eponymous book by Anthony M. Cummings, Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London 2023). They are designed to enable readers and listeners to enter the sound world of late-medieval and early-modern Florence.Despite the enviable place Florence occupies in the historical imagination, its music-historical importance is not as well-understood as it should be. Yet if Florence was the city of Dante Alighieri, Niccolo Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Galileo Galilei, it was also the birthplace of the Renaissance madrigal, opera, and the piano. Our goal in assembling this set of recordings, which survey the principal surviving genres of music in Florence in the half-millennium between c. 1250 and c. 1750, was to provide a “virtual” evocation of the extraordinary musical culture of golden-age Florence, one of unsurpassed importance. Through the integration of the contents of the book and the CDs, and leveraging text, image, musical notation, and sound, we offer our listeners the possibility of a fascinating metaphoric time travel.Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750 accompanies a book by musicologist Anthony Curtis of the same title. Yet it is of general interest as well, as shown by the album’s appearance on classical best-seller lists in early 2023. Curtis’ aim is to elevate the musical contributions of Florence to the same level enjoyed by its artistic and literary productions. The value of his musical selections is twofold. First, he introduces to listeners a great many composers they may not know. Second, he catches international styles as they wash over a specific city in a unique way. The album has four sections, devoted respectively to the late Middle Ages, the early and late Renaissance, and the Baroque. Each of these is mostly the province of one of the three groups present: the early music vocal-instrumental group La Morra, the late Renaissance ensemble Theatro dei Cervelli, and the pianist Francesco Corti. All are more than competent. Corti plays some little-known Baroque keyboard music from Florence, much of it anonymous, that may be the biggest find here; works such as the Pastorale mezza bigia of Francesco Feroci have a unique lyricism even if one might argue that by 1750, Florence was past its “golden age.” Not all the music is Florentine; as Franco-Flemish polyphony came to rule Europe, Florence was no exception, and such composers as Heinrich Isaac and Alexander Agricola are included. No doubt, readers of the book will gain more insight into the issues involved, but Curtis’ own booklet offers a useful taste. The album will be of great value to museum programmers looking to present music associated with their collections of Florentine art, and it will appeal to anyone who has been fascinated by the jewel of Tuscany. – James Manheim

Tracklist:

1-01. La Morra – O levita nobilis Eugeni (04:16)
1-02. La Morra – Ogne homo (02:10)
1-03. La Morra – Vergine donzella imperadrice (05:30)
1-04. La Morra – I’ vo’ bene (03:39)
1-05. Corina Marti – Nella più cara parte (02:11)
1-06. La Morra – La Manfredina / La rotta della Manfredina (03:06)
1-07. La Morra – Astio non morì mai (03:41)
1-08. La Morra – Verbum caro factum est (06:32)
1-09. La Morra – Umil madonna (02:44)
1-10. La Morra – Poichè il tuo cor (03:33)
1-11. La Morra – Adieu Florens la yolye (02:40)
1-12. La Morra – In mijnem sin (02:42)
1-13. La Morra – Ne più bella di queste (04:50)
1-14. La Morra – Iesù sommo conforto (02:58)
1-15. La Morra – Donna, el pianto et la mia doglia (05:16)
1-16. La Morra – Sacerdos et pontifex (00:30)
1-17. Theatro dei Cervelli – Sacerdos et pontifex (02:24)
1-18. Francesco Corti – Ricercar del Primo Tuono del Zazzerino (04:01)
1-19. Theatro dei Cervelli – I’ vo piangendo i miei passati tempi (02:02)
1-20. Theatro dei Cervelli – Mentre con mill’amori (02:29)
1-21. Theatro dei Cervelli – Nasce la pena mia (03:45)
1-22. Francesco Corti – Nasce la pena mia (intavolato) (04:47)
1-23. Theatro dei Cervelli – Stabat mater dolorosa (03:49)
2-01. Theatro dei Cervelli – Se nelle voci nostre (02:35)
2-02. Theatro dei Cervelli – Godi turba mortal (01:55)
2-03. Francesco Corti – Fuga Secunda à 4 (04:00)
2-04. Theatro dei Cervelli – Si bona suscepimus (05:29)
2-05. Leon Jänicke – Aria di Firenze (01:58)
2-06. Theatro dei Cervelli – La pastorella mia spietata e rigida (03:30)
2-07. Francesco Corti – Aria di Fiorenza (02:57)
2-08. Theatro dei Cervelli – Quando il sol apparisce (02:33)
2-09. Francesco Corti – Aria di Fiorenza (02:10)
2-10. Theatro dei Cervelli – Cantate Domino (02:13)
2-11. Theatro dei Cervelli – Io parto lasso (05:01)
2-12. Francesco Corti – Aria di Fiorenza (04:02)
2-13. Theatro dei Cervelli – Splendete serene (01:46)
2-14. Theatro dei Cervelli – Di quel nudo pargoletto (02:33)
2-15. Francesco Corti – Aria di Fiorenza / La Rotta / Saltarel (02:51)
2-16. Theatro dei Cervelli – La Salviata (05:11)
2-17. Theatro dei Cervelli – Sull’affricane arene (02:40)
2-18. Francesco Corti – Preludio Cantabile con Ligature (02:34)
2-19. Francesco Corti – Aria alla Francese (04:12)
2-20. Francesco Corti – Passacagli Pastorali (01:23)
2-21. Francesco Corti – Pastorale (03:38)
2-22. Francesco Corti – Canzona (03:49)
2-23. Francesco Corti – Al Post Comunio (01:37)
2-24. Francesco Corti – All’Elevazione (03:47)
2-25. Francesco Corti – All’Offertorio (01:48)
2-26. Francesco Corti – Pastorale mezza bigia (05:42)