Giovanni Antonio Rigatti Utfasol Ensemble Massimo Lombardi

Vespro della Beata Vergine i Disinvolti Giovanni Antonio Rigatti UtFaSol Ensemble Massimo Lombardi English ⁄ Français ⁄ Italiano ⁄ Texts ⁄ Tracklist Menu Under Monteverdi’s shadow by Jonathan Pradella Giovanni Antonio Rigatti was born in Venice in 1613, the same year Claudio Monteverdi was appointed maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s Basilica. He was only 3 when he lost his father Marc’Antonio, born in Vicenza, who served as an official of the Institute of Health. In 1621, he was admitted amongst St. Mark’s pueri cantores, likely through his mother Santina, who was well-connected both in artistic and ecclesiastical circles. Though he is unlikely to have been a direct pupil of Monteverdi, it is reasonable to assume that he would have known his deputies Alessandro Grandi e Giovanni Rovetta. Rigatti pursued both musical and ecclesiastical careers, serving as an acolyte at the church of Santa Maria Formosa and receiving the tonsure in 1633. Despite the tragic years of the 1629-30 plague, he continued to receive a first rate musical training, publishing his first motet anthology just a year after his tonsure and dedicating it to the bishop of Padova, 2 Marcantonio Corner – brother of Federico, Patriarch of Venice. In 1635, just months after being ordained subdeacon, he was hired as maestro di cappella by the Cathedral of Udine and with outstanding contractual conditions, befitting «one of the most excellent musicians in all of Venice». In return, he dedicated the city his Musiche concertate cioè madrigali – though he resigned less than two years later. He was then ordained deacon in 1637 and priest in 1639. Interestingly, he was appointed musical director of the Ospedale dei Mendicanti that same year, replacing Rovetta at the last minute, only to be sacked and quickly replaced three years later for the crime of also teaching at another such institution. It must have been a time of great musical activity, as Bartolomeo Magni published Rigatti’s monumental Messa e salmi parte concertati (1640), dedicated to Emperor Ferdi- Jonathan Pradella (Université de Fribourg) has lived in Venice for the past twenty years, teaching and reasearching 16th ans 17th century Venetian music. He edited the entry “Giovanni Antonio Rigatti” in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (2016), the most recent monographic study dedicated to the composer to date. English nand III, followed by Musiche diverse a voce sola (1641), dedicated to Francesco Pozzo – a lawyer from Lodi well known for the musical events he hosted at his Venetian residence. The now lost first edition of Rigatti’sMessa e salmi ariosi a 3 voci concertati is likely to have been published that same year. In 1642, he took up service at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, where he left an indelible mark both as a man and as a teacher. Under Pozzo’s patronage and that other members of his circle, Rigatti published his Motetti a voce sola (1643). Shortly after, between 1645 and 1646, his social standing was further increased when Patriarch Gianfrancesco Morosini appointed Rigatti both maestro di cappella and chaplain to his brother, Procurator of St. Mark Alvise Morosini. As thanks for the assignment at the Cathedral of San Pietro di Castello, Rigatti dedicated the prelate his Salmi diversi di compieta (1646). The following year, he was elected subcanon by the Procurators of St. Mark. The last three years of his life saw Rigatti consistently devoted to composing for small vocal ensemble and basso continuo: a well established tradition at the Ospedali and a fertile ground for experimentation. In 1648, he suddenly fell ill and died, only three days before his 35th birthday. 3 Rigatti is perhaps best understood through his music, as well as through that of his great many Venetian contemporaries, amongst whom figure Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli, as well as Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta, Natale Monferrato, Martino Pesenti, and Giovanni Felice Sances. In just fifteen years, Rigatti published ten anthologies: two of secular music (containing concertato madrigals, arias, cantatas, dialogues, canzoni and a lament); and eight of sacred music (of which four of motets, four of masses and psalms). All his works show the hand of a first rate composer, with especial mastery in melodic shaping; skilful use of harmonic resources at his disposal, daring at times but always bal- anced in their rhetorical significance; marked sense of architecture in writing on obstinate bass modules; generous use of dynamic and agogic markings scattered across the page, suggesting a creative mind acutely aware of the expressive power of his music. A less obvious analysis of such details as the title pages and dedications we find in Rigatti’s works may further contribute to achieve a fuller understanding of the context within which they thrived nearly four hundred years ago, revealing an impressive network of connections, by no means limited to the Venetian milieu. In Istria, for example, the prior of the Servants of Mary in Koper, Antonio da Padova, expressed his admiration for the young Rigatti just six years after his first publication – an admiration he shared with the rich merchant Tomaso di Vettor Vasca, who was connected to the Innsbruck court and was the manager of a wide commercial network that extended form Venice to Spain, Tyrol, and Poland. The erudite Westphalian prior of the Knights of Malta in Bohemia, Bernhard de Witte, appreciated Venetian music and Rigatti’s work so much that he travelled all the way to Italy just to meet him in person. Rigatti’s fame reached Parma too, as can be seen in a dedication to the singer and composer Alessandro Galli, active both at Santa Maria della Steccata and at the Farnese court. Rigatti’s works and the appreciation they received paint the portrait of an artistic per- sonality which could have led him to the most important courts and cathedrals of his day, had death not taken him so young. Rigatti published three collections of ‘masses and psalms’: the Messa e salmi parte concertati (1640), Messa e salmi ariosi a tre voci concertati (1641/42) and Messa e salmi a tre 4 voci (1648). All three collections open with the ordinarium parts of the Roman Catholic Mass, but the criteria with which the psalms were chosen varied for each work. His first collection is monumental, with an impressive display of many voices and instruments, something for the young Rigatti to stand his own next to the great Monteverdi. Rigatti’s work, in fact, was published round the same time as Monteverdi’s Selva morale e spirituale, by the same printer (Magni), and was dedicated to Empress Eleonora Gonzaga, mother of Ferdinand III (to whom Rigatti dedicated his anthology). Though Monteverdi’s anthology is much larger, it shares an almost identical core of psalms with Rigatti’s; and in both cases the psalms are set to music in up to three different versions, offering a richer palette from which to choose and fit the peculiarities of each liturgical service. The other two collections share the same selection of psalms but are more concise, with the whole male and female cursus in a single version for three voices, with the addi- tion of a Salve Regina in the second. The title of the present recording, Vespers for the Blessed Virgin, implies that the selection of psalms comes from the female cursus only. They belong to the Messa e salmi Menu English ariosi a tre voci concertati, & parte con li ripieni à beneplacito, a 1643 reprint of the now lost 1641/42 first edition (reprinted again in 1657). Unfortunately, as the dedicatee remains unknown, so does the context in which this particular work was conceived. The scoring is for three voices and basso continuo, to which a four voice ripieno choir may be added. The continuo typically included organ, gamba and theorbo, but it could also involve a larger ensemble. The same flexibility could be applied to the ripieno, which could comprise instruments as well as voices – a common practice in polyphonic music since 16th century, which doubled or even replaced one or more voices with strings or winds. The resilience with which this 16th century practice endured throughout the 17th century had two raisons d’être: the first was commercial, as pieces one could perform with multiple ensemble formations made their printed editions more attractive to greater number of potential buyers; the second regards the sonorous universe of the time, imbued with a profound sense of theatre, a love for constantly renewed musical gestures, impro- visational genius, and the continuous reinterpretation of a shared expressive vocabulary. The rich selection of pieces and composers chosen for the present recording inte- grates a core of Rigatti’s psalms to reconstruct a Solemn Vespers, with plainchant an- tiphons from the Commune Festorum Beatae Mariae Virginis preceding the psalms and 5 short motets or instrumental pieces in loco Antiphonae (after the psalms), as was Vene- tian custom. The Vespers is completed by the parts of the Ordinarium Missae, thus taking the form of what could have been an actual liturgical service as one might have heard it in the 17th century. Venice, September 2020 Menu À l’ombre de Monteverdi par Jonathan Pradella Giovanni Antonio Rigatti naît à Venise en 1613, l’année durant laquelle Claudio Monteverdi est nommé maître de chapelle à la Basilique de Saint Marc. A trois ans à peine il pleure la mort soudaine de son père Marc Antoine, de Vicence, fonctionnaire auprès de l’Office de la Santé : des relations artistiques et ecclésiastiques de bon niveau ont probablement permis à la mère Santina de le faire admettre parmi le pueri cantores de Saint Marc en 1621 ; il est exclu qu’il ait été directement élève de Monteverdi, mais plus probable qu’il ait connu ses maîtres assistants Alessandro Grandi et Giovanni Rovetta.

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