Nicola Vicentino, Madrigali a cinque voci libro quinto, Milano 1572 and other Harpsichord Works

Featuring

Floriana Fornelli
Arianna Lanci
Aurelio Schiavoni
Alberto Allegrezza
Hirai Haruyki
Guglielmo Buonsanti

Marcello Vargetto
Stefano Lorenzetti
Simone Vallerotonda
Ensemble del Dipartimento di Musica Antica del Conservatorio di Vicenza
Nicola Vicentino
Giovanni de Macque
Tarquinio Merula
Giovanni Maria Trabaci
Giulio Abondante

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Recording & Production

This album features a World Première Recording for most tracks, with the exception of four instrumental pieces by Giovanni de Macque, Tarquinio Merula, and Giovanni Maria Trabaci.

Performer Biography

Stefano Lorenzetti, the harpsichordist and conductor on this album, is also a musicologist who has published monographs and over fifty essays on music history.

Interpretation

Vicentino advised that music for private rooms should be sung with a softer, sweeter voice and from memory, allowing for gestural mimicry to accompany the music.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Nicola Vicentino's work represents a radical reform project of musical language, exploring diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic genres through practical experimentation, theoretical codification, and the design of new instruments.

Instruments

The recording uses an Italian Chromatic Harpsichord by Tony Chinnery, built in 1992, and a chromatic harpsichord with nineteen divisions per octave is required for Giovanni Maria Trabaci's Toccata e recercar cromatico.

Interpretation

Vicentino's treatise, L'Antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica, defines contexts for musical experience, distinguishing between 'reserved music' for private settings, which favors chromatic and enharmonic experimentation, and public contexts like churches, which prefer the diatonic genre.

Compositional Technique

Vicentino's Fifth Book of Madrigals, the focus of this recording, is notable for its bold use of chromaticism, which appears in seventy percent of all measures.