CHAN 0601 Front.qxd 9/1/08 11:21 am Page 1 Chan 0601 CHACONNE ROMANESCA Italian Music for Harpsichord Sophie Yates CHANDOS early music CHAN 0601 BOOK.qxd 9/1/08 11:23 am Page 2 Romanesca Italian Music for Harpsichord Giovanni Picchi (fl. 1600–1625) 1 Toccata 3:44 2 Ballo ditto il Pichi 1:50 AKG Giovanni de Macque (1548/1550–1614) 3 Seconde Stravaganze 1:24 Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 –1643) 4 Partite 6 sopra l’Aria di Follia 5:53 Giovanni Picchi 5 Ballo alla Polacha 2:00 Michelangelo Rossi (1601/2–1656) 6 Toccata No. 7 4:35 Girolamo Frescobaldi 7 Partite 14 sopra l’Aria della Romanesca 10:51 Girolamo Frescobaldi Giovanni Picchi 8 Ballo Ongaro 2:00 Carlo Gesualdo (c. 1561–1613) 9 Canzon francese del Principe 4:36 3 CHAN 0601 BOOK.qxd 9/1/08 11:23 am Page 4 Antonio Valente (fl. 1565–1580) Romanesca 10 Tenore del passo e mezo con sei mutanze 3:05 Claudio Merulo (1533–1604) The harpsichord was essentially an Italian setting by Claudio Merulo of Lassus’s famous 11 Susanne un jour 6:56 invention. Although there is some evidence five-part chanson Susanne un jour was that experimental models were developed in published in his posthumous Terzo libro de Giovanni Picchi Germany in the fifteenth century (the earliest canzoni d’intavolatura d’organo a 5 fatte alla francese (Venice, 1611). It is a fine example 12 Todescha 1:16 surviving instrument, a small clavicytherium of about 1480, seems to have been made in of the sixteenth-century practice of arranging Girolamo Frescobaldi Ulm), the harpsichord first began to be mass- and decorating vocal music for instruments. produced in a standardized form in northern Lassus’s original chanson, a witty retelling of 13 Toccata in A minor 4:39 Italy soon after 1500; about half of the the biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders, 14 Cento Partite sopra Passacagli 10:16 surviving sixteenth-century Italian was one of the most popular models for such TT 63:38 instruments were made in Venice. Italian reworkings. Merulo worked for nearly thirty harpsichords are small and light by the years as one of the organists of St Mark’s in Sophie Yates harpsichord standards of later northern-European Venice, but ended his days in Parma. instruments, and nearly all of them have a The fondness of Italian composers for the single keyboard with only one or two French chanson eventually led to the creation Single manual Italian harpsichord after early Italian harpsichords registers. Thus they offer little variety of tone, of the canzona, a purely instrumental genre (c. 1600) by Ransom and Hammett. Made in 1994. but amply compensate for this with a lively, borrowing many of its features. One of the sparkling yet delicate sound, ideally suited to most extraordinary examples is the Canzon the music written for it by Italian composers. francese del Principe by Carlo Gesualdo. It Like other repertories of Renaissance survives in a manuscript copied by the young instrumental music, Italian harpsichord Luigi Rossi, and has wildly extravagant music essentially divides into two types: keyboard elaborations added underneath pieces based on dance forms and idioms, and some sections of the score. The original those that derive in some way from vocal version seems to have been intended for four- music. There are two examples of the latter part consort, though it is not clear whether on this recording. The highly elaborate Gesualdo was responsible for it as well as the 4 5 CHAN 0601 BOOK.qxd 9/1/08 11:23 am Page 6 keyboard adaptation. But the lurid style of used a much more varied and sophisticated toccata. Actually, there are keyboard toccatas After studying at the Royal College of Music, this piece, with its strange turns of harmony keyboard idiom. The Partite 14 sopra l’Aria earlier than Frescobaldi’s, such as the one by where her teachers were Ruth Dyson and and bizarre chromatic trills, certainly sounds della Romanesca is a fine, resourceful set of Picchi, which somehow found its way into Robert Woolley, Sophie Yates began her as if it comes from the fantastic milieu of the variations on a chord sequence related to the the English manuscript now known as the career by winning the International melancholic and reclusive Prince of Venosa, Passamezzo Antico, and familiar to English Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. It consists of Competition at the Boston Early Music musician and murderer. musicians as the harmonies of ‘Greensleeves’. brilliant running passages occasionally Festival. As a result, she was invited to tour The dance music recorded here is of two By contrast, the charming but rather slight interrupted by grave chordal passages. The and broadcast throughout the eastern states types. In the pieces by Giovanni Picchi, from Partite 6 sopra l’Aria di Follia is not related Seconde Stravaganze by the important of America. She was musician-in-residence at his Intavolatura di balli d’arpicordo (Venice, to the famous La folia ground bass, used by Flemish–Neapolitan composer Giovanni de the university of Western Australia and has 1621), thick percussive chords in the left many composers from Corelli to the present. Macque is a toccata in all but name, though given concerts in Morocco and Syria – places hand accompany lively tunes and simple Frescobaldi’s Cento Partite sopra Passacagli it explores weird chromatic harmonies rather not usually found on a harpsichordist’s variations in the right, an idiom associated is one of the longest and greatest sets of than virtuosity – appropriately for a member schedule. She performs regularly around with Venetian harpsichord music ever since variations of the seventeenth century. It is of Gesualdo’s circle. In Frescobaldi’s toccatas europe and future recitals are planned in the early sixteenth century. Picchi seems to mostly based on the four descending notes of the passage-work is much more complex, and Denmark, Switzerland and Spain. have spent his entire career in Venice, latterly the passacaglia ground bass, the emblem of is more satisfactorily integrated with the Nearer to home, Sophie specializes in as organist of the Scuola di San Rocco. By love and death in contemporary vocal music, contrapuntal material, and this is also a tracking down original instruments and the contrast, in the Tenore del passo e mezo con but there are also sections based on a feature of the well-known Seventh Toccata English virginals is a particular enthusiasm. sei mutanze by the Neapolitan organist and complementary rising bass pattern, and on by his follower Michelangelo Rossi, printed She has performed on most of the playable composer Antonio Valente, from his the more lively major-key ciaccona, familiar in Toccate e corenti d’intavolatura d’organo virginals surviving in this country and is now Intavolatura de Cimbalo (Naples, 1578), the to us from Monteverdi’s duet ‘Zefiro torna’. (Rome, ?1640). Rossi also seems to have working on a long term project to theme is in the bass: it is a set of six Despite Frescobaldi’s title, there are actually been aware of the chromatic experiments of commission a book of contemporary English variations on the Passamezzo Antico, one of about one hundred and twenty variations, if de Macque and other Neapolitan composers, pieces for the instrument. French baroque the most popular chord sequences used in all the diverse episodes are counted. and ended the piece with an extraordinary repertoire is also dear to her, and she is Italian dance music. Frescobaldi was the most famous and passage of rising and falling chromatic scales, currently researching a programme of the Neapolitan composers were particularly important Roman keyboard composer, and exploiting the piquant effects produced by music of Casanova’s circle. fond of pieces of this sort, and Girolamo was mainly responsible for popularizing and mean-tone tuning and its unequally-sized Sophie broadcasts regularly on the BBC Frescobaldi probably had them in mind developing a third type of Italian keyboard semitones. and WDR, and her contract with Chandos when he wrote the sets of variations or music, free in form and improvisatory in Records gives her the opportunity to explore partite in his Toccate e partite d’intavolatura idiom; for want of a better name it came to © 1997 Peter Holman different styles of early keyboard music. di cimbalo (Rome, 1615–16), though he be described simply as a piece to play, or 6 7 CHAN 0601 BOOK.qxd 9/1/08 11:23 am Page 8 Komponisten für die französische Chanson die lebhaften Melodien und deren einfache Romanesca führte zur Entstehung der Canzona, einer Variationen in der rechten; dieses Idiom ist rein instrumentalen Gattung, die viele ihrer seit dem frühen 16. Jahrhundert für die Eigenschaften von der Chanson entlehnte. venezianische Cembalomusik überaus Das Cembalo war im Grunde eine man auch die frühe italienische Cembalo- Eines der außergewöhnlichsten Beispiele ist charakteristisch. Picchi scheint sein gesamtes italienische Erfindung. Es gibt zwar Hinweise, musik in zwei Gruppen unterteilen, und die Canzon francese del Principe von Carlo Leben in Venedig verbracht zu haben, zuletzt daß experimentelle Modelle bereits im Laufe zwar in Stücke, die auf Tanzformen und - Gesualdo. Das Werk ist in einer von dem als Organist an der Scuola di San Rocco. Im des 15. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland modellen basieren, und in solche, die in jungen Luigi Rossi angelegten Handschrift Gegensatz zu Picchis Komposition befindet entwickelt wurden (das älteste erhaltene irgendeiner Weise auf Vokalmusik enthalten und hat in einigen Abschnitten sich in dem Stück Tenore del passo e mezo Instrument, ein kleines um 1480 erbautes zurückzuführen sind. Aus der zweiten ausgesprochen extravagante Cembalo- con sei mutanze des neapolitanischen Clavicytherium, scheint aus Ulm zu Kategorie enthält die vorliegende Aufnahme Passagen.