Millennium of Music
Music List #03-07
IL FASOLO: "The Bean"
 
NOTE: These performances from the Holland Festival of Early Music at Utrecht 2002 are by the ensemble Le Poeme Harmonique directed by Vincent Dumestre. They are supported in part by Radio Nederland and the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C.  

Jean-Francois Lattarico provides these observations:

 
How many composers await the discovery of one of their compositions so that we can identify them once and for all? In Venice, the city of masks, ambiguity was a virtue, as suggested by the name Accademia degli incogniti.   Most of the works in this concert are ascribed to a certain Il Fasolo ('the bean'). This name is surrounded by many uncertainties, and there may even be two composers with the same surname. But Il Fasolo, Giovanni Battista Fasolo and the composer Francesco Manelli may simply be one and the same person. The three works on the programme, published in Rome in 1628, belong to the Roman-Neapolitan carnaval tradition, which employed figures from the commedia dell'arte.  

Il Fasolo
Francesco Manelli 1594-1667 and/or Giovanni Battista Fasolo, ca.1600-na 1659:
 
1. Bergamasca : La Barchetta passagiera             
 
2. Chi non sà come Amor                                
     Son ruinato, appassionato
 
3. Jacarà: Aria alla napolitana                                          
 
4. Ciaccona: Acceso mio core                                      
 
5.  Lamento di Madama Lucia                                         
 
6.  Canzonetta: Sguardo Lusinghiero                                 
 
7.  Serenata in lingua lombardia che fa la Gola a Carnaval