Piccinini: Intavolatura di Liuto, et di Chitarrone, Book 2

Featuring

Francesca Torelli
Alessandro Piccinini

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Performer Biography

Francesca Torelli, the lutenist on this album, studied at the Guildhall School in London and is a lute professor at the Conservatory of Milano.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Piccinini's Toccate aimed to give the impression of spontaneous, vivid artistic expression, using elements of unwritten music but elaborating them in a complex manner.

Composition History

Piccinini's second volume of lute intabulations, published in 1639, was edited by his son, Leonardo Maria, who also included some of his own compositions.

Compositional Technique

The 'Battaglia' genre, featured in this album, was common among 16th and 17th-century composers and aimed to evoke battlefield sounds like trumpet calls, drum rolls, and even soldiers' folk songs.

Composer Biography

Alessandro Piccinini was born in 1566 into a family of lutenists in Bologna, a city renowned for plucked string instrument players and makers.

Compositional Technique

Piccinini's 'Calasone' piece deliberately breaks compositional rules, like using parallel fifths, to imitate the less refined sound of the colascione, an instrument often associated with Commedia dell'Arte characters.