IDAGIO | Alessandro Scarlatti: Responsories For Holy Week

Featuring

Carlo Steno Rossi
Sergio Balestracci
La Stagione Armonica
Alessandro Scarlatti

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Performer Biography

La Stagione Armonica, founded in 1991, specializes in Renaissance and Baroque music but has also performed 19th and 20th-century works under conductors like Jordi Savall and Riccardo Muti.

Composition History

The authorship of these responsories by Alessandro Scarlatti has been questioned by musicologists because his name is not mentioned in the manuscript, and the scores are incomplete.

Composition History

A memoir by Giovanni Maria Casini, choir master of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, suggests Alessandro Scarlatti composed these responsories for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, likely premiered in Florence in 1708.

Compositional Technique

The responsories are structured with a tonal unity that changes from one nocturne to another and from day to day, following an ascending order symbolizing Christ's path to death and resurrection.

Interpretation

La Stagione Armonica's interpretation is based on the belief that the work is attributable to Alessandro Scarlatti, supported by stylistic comparisons with his other sacred, profane, instrumental, and didactic compositions.

Performer Biography

Sergio Balestracci, the director of La Stagione Armonica for over twenty years, was among the first in Italy to rediscover Renaissance and Baroque repertoire as both an instrumentalist and vocalist.

Composition History

The only copy of Alessandro Scarlatti's Holy Week responsories is found in manuscript 443 of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, where they are bound with lamentations and motets.