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    • 2022-2023 Concerts >
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    • 2022-23 Virtual Offerings >
      • The Choir Loft >
        • Feb. 5 - Winter's Chill - Dianna Morgan
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Aura Soave by Luzzasco Luzzaschi
The famous concerto delle donne was a singing ensemble based in the northeastern Italian city of Ferrara. Rising in the 1570's, the group of ladies became widely known for their virtuosic singing, with a specialty in quick passagework or 'diminutions'. I've known about this group and its musical style for many years--Anthony Newcomb, the chief modern researcher in the field, was one of my professors at Berkeley--but haven't delved too deeply.
​That's gonna change, beginning today.

About three months ago, I featured a madrigal by Luzzasco Luzzaschi, the chief composer for the concerto delle donne, in our Monday Madrigal series. The beautiful 'Aura ch' errando' falls within the then-dominant madrigalian style of Monteverdi, Marenzio, Wert and others: Four-, five- and six-part imitative polyphonic song. Today, in contrast, we'll take a look at one of the soloistic madrigals from Luzzaschi's 'Madrigali per cantare et sonare a 1-3 soprani' (1601), one of the prime repositories of the florid style of the concerto delle donne.

'Aura soave' sets to music an exquisite anonymous poem, possibly by Torquato Tasso or Giovanni Battista Guarini, both of whom wrote poems for the Ferrarese composers. The protagonist tells us of her past sadness, now transformed into joy by means of words of love whispered into her ear by her beloved. At the end, she calls him to her, so that she can feel 'life that is happy beyond the usual'.

In Luzzaschi's phenomenal setting, for solo soprano and basso continuo, this jewel of a poem is brought to even more vivid life. Beginning with clear, open lines to set the opening words, Luzzaschi deploys certain special effects, such as the extraordinary low notes on 'Love, who was sleeping there'. As is typical of madrigals in general, great care is taken to cradle the Italian words into the musical lines. Eventually, in her excitement and gratitude, the soprano opens up into increasingly spectacular diminutions, these arising out of certain positive lines of the text; contrasting lines, such as 'I lived with out life while love's caring was exhausted in me', receive a much more sober setting. The piece ends with a joyous triple time, thrice adorned with efflorescences of ornamentation.

You just have to hear this piece! I was exploring Luzzaschi recordings on the web when I came across this video, featuring the soprano Perrine Devillers and the harpsichordist Elam Rotem, who bring the piece to vivid, unforgettable life. A score, a text-translation sheet, and Cinzia's pronunciation recording are all attached herewith.
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Spread over the next several weeks, we'll listen to and look at other pieces written for the concerto delle donne; and I suspect that there may be a concert featuring this wonderful repertoire in Sonoma Bach's future!
Click here to download learning materials
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