Program: #14-06 Air Date: Feb 03, 2014
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NOTE: All of the music on these three programs came from the boxed sets featuring:
La Capella Reial de Catalunya and
Hespèrion XXI directed by Jordi Savall
The recordings are on Alia Vox and the U.S. distributor is Harmonia Mundi USA.
I. Diego Ortiz: Recercadas del Tratado de Glosas (1553). Alia Vox CD AVSA9899.
On 10th December, 1553, at one of the highpoints in the Golden Age of Spanish music, there appeared in Rome the TRATTADO DE GLOSAS SOBRE CLAUSULAS Y OTROS GENEROS DE PUNTOS EN LA MUSICA DE VIOLONES NUEVAMENTE PUESTOS EN LUZ by Diego Ortiz, who was also known under the name “el Toledano”. An inevitable reference point for the study of instrumental performance practice in the 16th century, this work is of exceptional interest, both for its purely historical significance and for its artistic value, since it contains the finest examples of the known repertoire for viola da gamba (vihuela de arco or violone) and harpsichord in the Renaissance period.
We know little today about the life of the Spanish viol player and composer Diego Ortiz. The first signs of his existence occur at the same time as the publication in Rome of the Trattado de Glosas (1553). The extent of knowledge required for the compilation of such a work leads us to think that it was composed when Ortiz was already in his maturity. It was composed – or revised, which seems to be the implication of the indication that the treatise was “nuevamente puestos en luz” (newly published), in the year 1553. By the time that he left his native country, Diego Ortiz had already completed his musical education. This is shown by the clear pioneering nature of his treatise from the strict point of view of musical style. A comparison with Sylvestro Ganassi's Regola rubertina (Venice, 1542-43), a treatise printed ten years before that of Ortiz and specifically dedicated to a study of viol technique, as well as the underniably Hispanic character of the work by Diego Ortiz, supports the hypothesis that Ortiz had already completed his musical education when he left his native country. However, despite recent research in his native town, we still do not know the exact date of his birth or the place where he received his musical education or even what he did before he undertook his journey to Italy.
RECERCADAS SOBRE EL CANTO LLANO « LA SPAGNA»
Recercada segunda
Recercada terçera
Recercada primera
Recercada quarta
Recercada quinta
Recercada sesta
RECERCADAS SOBRE EL MADRIGAL « O FELICI OCCHI MIEI » de J. Arcadelt
Recercada quarta
Recercada primera
Recercada segunda
Recercada terçera
RECERCADAS PARA VIOLA DE GAMBA SOLA
Recercada terçera
Recercada segunda
Recercada primera
Recercada quarta
RECERCADAS SOBRE LA CANCIÓN « DOULCE MEMOIRE » de P. Sandrin
Recercada quarta
Recercada primera
Recercada segunda
Recercada terçera
RECERCADAS SOBRE TENORES
Recercada quarta sobre la “folia”
Recercada primera sobre el “passamezzo antiguo”
Recercada ottava sobre “la folia”
Recercada “Quinta” boz
Recercada tercera sobre el “passamezzo” moderno
Recercada sesta sobre la “Romanesca”
Recercada settima sobre la “Romanesca”
Recercada quinta sobre el “passamezzo” antiguo
Recercada segunda sobre el “passamezzo” moderno
II. BACH: Orchestral Suites BWV 1066-1069 (Le Concert des Nations/Jordi Savall). Alia Vox CD AVSA 9890 A + B.
CD 1
OUVERTURE (SUITE) III EN RÉ MAJEUR, BWV 1068
1. (Ouverture)
2. Air
3. Gavotte I - Gavotte II
4. Bourrée
5. Gigue
OUVERTURE (SUITE) I EN UT MAJEUR, BWV 1066
6. (Ouverture)
7. Courante
8. Gavotte I alternativement - Gavotte II
9. Forlane
10. Menuett I alternativement - Menuett II
11. Bouree I alternativement - Bourée II
12. Passepied I - Passepied II
CD 2
OUVERTURE (SUITE) II EN SI MINEUR, BWV 1067
1. (Ouverture)
2. Rondeau
3. Sarabande
4. Bourée I alternativement - Bourée II
5. Polonaise; Double
6. Menuett
7. Badinerie
OUVERTURE (SUITE) IV EN RÉ MAJEUR, BWV 1069
8. (Ouverture)
9. Bourée I - Bourée II
10. Gavotte
11. Menuett I alternativement - Menuett II
12. Réjouissance
III. John Dowland: Lachrimæ or seaven teares 1604. Alia Vox CD AVSA9901.
John Dowland was no less famous for his misfortunes than for his works. This subtle, elusive and strangely-behaved character led rather an adventurous life. Hailed as an Anglorum Orpheus (or “Orpheus of the English”) of almost divine powers, he inspired more comments and praise than most great musicians of his generation. To comply with legend, we were to associate him only with tears, sleep and gloom, in the gallery of Shakespearian heroes he could be placed somewhere between Hamlet and Jaques in As You like It. Although the legend may be partly based on truth, the musician himself contributed a great deal to it in his various writings; these are the confessions of a man full of dissonances, at once vulnerable and ambitious, ingenuous and haughty – an egocentric ever at odds with a world by which he felt himself rejected. Yet the dismal accents and sombre colours we readily associate with Dowland’s music may be less characteristic of his art than they are of a period which had been deeply shaken in its political security, religious faith and scientific beliefs. The man of the time, confronted with his duality as a terrestrial creature yearning for Eternity, was beset by doubts and dismay. It was such feelings that gave rise to what is sometimes called “17th century melancholy”. At the end of Elizabeth’s reign and through the Jacobean period, England, more than any other nation, was affected by this morbid wave: melancholy became the object of a new cult, to which the philosopher, the lover and the poet devoted themselves passionately... The common herd regarded it only as a precious convention, fit to be lampooned in the satires of the day; for sensitive souls, however, it proved to be one of the most fruitful sources of inspiration in a period that shone with the unique brilliance of Donne, Hilliard and Weelkes.
Such was the climate surrounding Dowland’s emblematic work, the Lachrimæ. In the manner of those Elizabethan painters who pictured the exemplary history of their model in simultaneous scenes, Dowland here gave the ideally condensed vision of his musical universe. Indeed the Lachrimæ collection does not belie the elegiac portrait of the composer; page after page it adds finishing touches to it, and also makes it more amiable since, as Dowland says in his preface, “though the title doth promise teares unfit guests in these ioyfull times, yet no doubt pleasant are the teares which Musicke weepes, neither are teares shed always in sorrow, but some time in ioy and gladness.”
1. Lachrimæ Antiquæ
2. Sir John Souch his Galiard
3. Lachrimæ Antiquæ Novaæ
4. M. Henry Noell his Galiard
5. Lachrimæ Gementes
6. The Earle of Essex Galiard
7. Lachrimæ Tristes
8. M. Nicho. Gryffith his Galiard
9. Lachrimæ Coactæ
10. M. Gils Hoby his Galiard
11. Lachrimæ Amantis
12. M. Thomas Collier his Galiard
13. Lachrimæ Veræ
14. Captaine Digorie Piper his Galiard
15. Semper Dowland Semper Dolens
16. The King of Denmarks Galiard
17. Sir Henry Umptons Funerall
18. M. Bucton his Galiard
19. M. John Langtons Pavan
20. Mrs. Nichols Almand
21. M. George Whitehead his Almand
Composer Info
Diego Ortiz, Bach, John Dowland
CD Info
Alia Vox CD AVSA9899, Alia Vox CD AVSA9901, Alia Vox CD AVSA 9890 A + B,