Andrew Parrott Photo: Dan Porges 2 3 Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) Gareth Morrell 5 tenor Spirito infernale Richard Latham 6 baritone Spirito infernale L’ORFEO Favola in musica James Arthur 7 bass-baritone Spirito infernale Libretto by Alessandro Striggio (?1573–1630) Curtis Streetman bass Spirito infernale First performed Mantua 1607 (for the Accademia degli Invaghiti) Robert Macdonald 8 bass Spirito infernale La Musica (Music) allegorical figure Orfeo (Orpheus) musician and poet, demigod and son of Apollo Taverner Players Euridice (Eurydice) a nymph, bride of Orpheus Kirsty Whatley harp Jamie Savan cornett Messaggiera (Messenger) a nymph and companion of Eurydice Steven Devine harpsichord, organ, regals Gawain Glenton cornett Speranza (Hope) allegorical figure Silas Wollston harpsichord, organ Adam Woolf trombone Caronte (Charon) dreaded ferryman of the Underworld Fred Jacobs chitarrone Abigail Newman trombone Proserpina daughter of Jupiter and wife of Pluto (her uncle) Jakob Lindberg chitarrone Susan Addison trombone Plutone (Pluto) King of the Underworld Lynda Sayce chitarrone Stephen Saunders bass trombone Apollo Sun god, patron of music and poetry, Oliver Webber violin, viola Andrew Harwood-White bass trombone father of Orpheus Hannah Tibell violin, viola Uri Smilansky recorder Ninfe e pastori nymphs and shepherds Wendi Kelly viola Gawain Glenton recorder Spiriti infernali spirits of the Underworld Christopher Suckling small bass violin Russell Gilmour trumpet Joseph Crouch bass violin David Staff trumpet Taverner Consort Richard Boothby great bass viol Adam Woolf trumpet David Hurley countertenor La Musica Susanne Heinrich great bass viol Abigail Newman trumpet Charles Daniels tenor Orfeo William Hunt contrabass viol Susan Addison trumpet Faye Newton soprano Euridice Stephen Henderson percussion Emily Van Evera soprano Messaggiera Clare Wilkinson mezzo-soprano Speranza directed by Andrew Parrott Curtis Streetman bass Caronte Emily Van Evera soprano Proserpina Pippa Thynne, Julia Stutfield administration Christopher Purves bass Plutone Giovanna del Perugia language coach Guy Pelc baritone Apollo Recording: 23 –28 July 2012, Church of St Michael & All Angels, Summertown, Oxford Anna Dennis Ninfa Recording producer and engineer: Adrian Hunter Design: Georgina Curtis for WLP Ltd. Rodrigo del Pozo 1 (high) tenor Pastore ൿ 2013 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Andrew Parrott. © 2013 Andrew Parrott 2 Simon Wall tenor Pastore (& Eco) Marketed by Avie Records www.avierecords.com 3 Gareth Morrell tenor Pastore Deutsche Einführungstexte sowie deutsche Inhaltsangabe sind auf www.taverner.org zu finden Robert Macdonald 4 bass Pastore Notes d’introduction et synopsis sont disponibles sur www.taverner.org 4 5 Track Title Role Time Page Track Title Role Time Page Compact Disc 1 Compact Disc 2 1 Toccata 2.16 22 ATTO TERZO 1 Sinfonia 1.28 33 PROLOGO 2 Scorto da te mio Nume Orfeo 1.16 33 2 Ritornello – Dal mio Permesso amato La Musica 6.12 22 3 Ecco l’atra palude Speranza 2.46 33 4 Dove, ah dove te n’ vai Orfeo 0.39 34 ATTO PRIMO 5 O tu ch’innanzi morte Caronte 1.38 34 3 In questo lieto e fortunato giorno Pastore 2 1.32 23 6 Sinfonia – Possente Spirto Orfeo 9.01 34 4 Vieni Imeneo, deh vieni Choro 0.48 23 7 Ben mi lusinga alquanto Caronte 0.45 35 5 Muse, honor di Parnaso Ninfa 0.53 23 8 Ahi sventurato amante Orfeo 1.09 35 6 Balletto – Lasciate i monti Choro 0.54 24 9 Sinfonia – Ei dorme Orfeo 2.32 36 7 Ma tu gentil cantor Pastore 1 0.43 24 10 Sinfonia – Nulla impresa per huom Choro 3.38 36 8 Rosa del Ciel, vita del Mondo Orfeo 1.57 24 9 Io non dirò Euridice 0.45 25 10 Balletto – Lasciate i monti Choro 0.55 25 ATTO QUARTO 11 Vieni Imeneo, deh vieni Choro 0.47 26 11 Signor quell’infelice Proserpina 2.29 37 12 Ma s’il nostro gioir Pastore 3 0.46 26 12 Benchè severo & immutabil fato Plutone 3.02 37 13 Ritornello – Alcun non sia Pastori 3.59 26 13 Quali grazie ti rendo Proserpina 2.00 38 14 Ecco il gentil cantore Un Spirito 2.36 39 ATTO SECONDO 15 O dolcissimi lumi Orfeo 2.35 40 14 Sinfonia – Ecco pur ch’a voi ritorno Orfeo 3.26 27 16 Sinfonia – È la virtute un raggio Choro 3.42 41 15 Ritornello – Vi ricorda o boschi ombrosi Orfeo 2.32 28 16 Mira, deh mira Orfeo Pastore 2 0.28 28 ATTO QUINTO 17 Ahi caso acerbo Messaggiera 2.50 29 17 Ritornello – Questi i campi di Tracia Orfeo 7.34 41 18 In un fiorito prato Messaggiera 3.25 30 18 Sinfonia – Perchè a lo sdegno & al dolor Apollo 4.09 43 19 Tu se’ morta Orfeo 2.17 31 19 Saliam cantando al Cielo Apollo, Orfeo 1.11 44 20 Ahi caso acerbo Pastori 1.16 31 20 Ritornello – Vanne Orfeo felice a pieno Choro 0.59 44 21 Ma io Messaggiera 1.21 31 21 Moresca 0.58 44 22 Sinfonia – Chi ne consola ahi lassi? Pastori 7.09 32 6 7 Favola in Musica: a new way to tell a story shared their aims, and so the Academies were born, places where the new learning could be debated by Hugh Griffith and theories of literature, rhetoric and drama proposed, using classical models as their starting point. When it came to discussions about music, academicians were confronted with a problem. Almost On 23 February 1607, a certain aristocrat called Carlo Magni wrote a letter to his brother in Rome, nothing had survived from the ancient world in the form of notation, and they had only the haziest giving him the news from Mantua. The day before, he told him, a Comedia had been put on in the idea (as we still do today) of how it might have sounded. That, however, was no bar to debating the usual theatre with the customary splendour. And another was due to take place the following evening, matter, calling on the help of conjecture, guesswork and sometimes just plain ignorance. not in the theatre but using a reception room – he calls it a sala – in one of the apartments of the palace. This would be a very unusual play, he said, ‘because all the actors will speak in music’ . This Plays with music play that had caught his attention was Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo . Burdened with the hindsight of four Music was used on the stage all through the 16th century to accompany plays with a classical setting. hundred years, we find it convenient to reserve a pigeonhole for L’Orfeo and label it ‘world’s first great Some were tragedies, some comedies, some pastoral tragicomedies recalling that mythical Arcadia opera ’. So it is revealing to discover that for Carlo Magni, the entertainment that he hoped to attend where nymphs and shepherds roamed, lounged, and fell desperately, often tragically, in love. The was not the world’s first great opera, but an unusual Comedia . We cannot be quite certain that he music, however, was not part of the action, but took the form of interludes. These might be songs actually did attend on the evening in question: he was concerned that there might not be room, and inserted into the text as a kind of diversion from the story, but more generally the main musical fare he would find himself excluded by ‘the small dimensions of the plac e’. consisted of a sequence of intermedi interspersed between the acts of the play and quite separate from it. Compared with the spoken drama, they were static, with no storyline and characters that were The Italian Academies allegorical and emblematic rather than realistic. But as entertainment they often rivalled and even Whoever did gain admittance into the room where L’Orfeo was first performed on 24 February, they eclipsed the play which they accompanied. The most famous of all the intermedi , those performed as will have been expecting to see and hear something that was intended as part entertainment, part part of the wedding celebrations at Florence in 1589, were conceived on the grandest scale, employing research project. If the second half of that description seems incongruous, we should know that this all the human and technical resources that a great court could muster. ‘story in music,’ as it was subtitled in the first published score of 1609, was being presented in front of The music of the intermedi may have been enough to gratify the general taste. Nevertheless, a a discussion group, the Academy of the Invaghiti (‘the Enraptured’). Like other such academies in Italy, feeling grew in some circles that the plays themselves, if they were really to imitate Greek models, this had been formed with a profoundly serious purpose: to create a forum where literary gentlemen should contain their own music, to be somehow integrated with the drama and not simply inserted as and aristocrats (all of them male, naturally) could meet to debate matters of intellectual interest. It is a stopgap entertainment. It was known that in Greek tragedies the chorus had sung or at least intoned worth remembering that the Italian Renaissance – which essentially means the rebirth or rediscovery their lines to music. Perhaps something similar might be attempted. We get a hint of this in a report of the ancient world – owed nothing to the universities of that time. Distinguished though these may of Alidoro , a play performed in 1568 before the court in Reggio Emilia, where one female member of have been, they were highly conservative institutions, hierarchical and dominated by the Church, which the chorus ‘sometimes exchanged thoughts with the other characters in the tragedy, and then during was at best ambivalent towards that older, pre-Christian world whose gods had been unashamed liars, the pauses in the action sang, or rather recited, those canzoni that are popularly known as choruses ’.