Carissimi

This present CD recording of 12 Motets for 1, 2 & 3 Men’s Voices and Basso continuo of Giacomo Carissimi? might be best considered an oddity as much as an attempt to satisfy a curiosity. Since there are no existing autograph Motet manuscripts of Giacomo Carissimi, all manuscripts that have been transcribed by Consortium Carissimi are transcriptions themselves of Carissimi’s contemporaries. These transcriptions of both sacred and secular music come from Library Manuscripts or Early Printed Editions, consequently much if not all of this music has not been performed and heard since.

Genius vindicated! Carissimi would seem to have been one of those composers popularly associated with sacred genres (in part because he was a Jesuit priest in the important post of Maestro de cappella at the Roman Collegio Germanico, in part because of the whims of the recording industry) to the neglect of the secular genres—especially the cantata—which he is acknowledged to have pursued with such distinction. During his lifetime Carissimi's cantatas were very much admired and with the appearance of this delightful CD the weight of his contemporary reputation will be more evenly divided.

The oratorios of the 17th century Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi, though distant ancestors of the familiar works of Haydn and Mozart, are quite different in scope and effect. They were church works, for one thing; the Latin oratorios recorded here were composed for Lenten celebrations in a Roman church, for literate worshippers who would have known the texts well and would have been attuned to what the composer was doing with them. Perhaps a good place for the modern listener to start is with the opening Jonas, which recounts the tale of Jonah's placement in belly of the whale and has as its climax his extended intra-cetaceian prayer.

Luigi Rossi (1598-1653), along with Monteverdi and Frescobaldi, were significant composers of the first half of the seventeenth century. His appreciation for the emotions of texts led him to devise a new means of expression in vocal music, which was the major part of his output. He was one of the first composers whose primary field was secular vocal music.

'Jonas' and 'Dives Malus' are particularly showy examples of the "sacred oratorios" with Latin texts chiefly taken from the Bible, which were extremely popular among the Italian aristocracy, both secular and clerical, throughout the 17th Century. Such musical theater pieces were the Counter-reformation's answer to the opera and secular oratorio, usually based on tales from Graeco-Roman sources, beloved of the Humanists. If any difference in the music is to be heard, it is that the sacred oratorios are more purely aesthetic and intellectual, while the secular oratorio is more easily comprehended by the untrained listener.

Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) celebrated his 400th birthday in 2005. Reason enough to pay tribute to this most important composer of the 17th century with a recording of some of his oratorios. Thanks to a very lively live recording of a concert with Jérome Correas and Les Paladins on Pan Classics, we now get to know five of his much admired oratorios.

Giacomo Carissimi (1605.4.18～1674.1.12) Italian composer. From 1623 to 1625, he served as a chorus member of the Tivoli Church; from 1624 to 1627, he also served as an organist. In 1628, he was appointed the chief of the church of St. Apollin in Rome. From 1628 to 1629, he served as the chief of the church in Assisi. From 1629, he served as the music director of Apollinal Church until his death. It has made important contributions to the early development of oratorio and cantata, perfected cantata, formed a structure of tunes, and improved the status of cantata to replace pastoral. The scale of his oratorio is small, and the part where the story is narrated by solo recitals is very expressive, and the role of chorus has been strengthened.

The small-scale motet was at the heart of daily and weekly musical practice in the Roman Catholic Church of the mid-seventeenth century. One of the genre’s most distinguished exponents was the maestro di cappella in the Jesuit Church in Rome, Bonifazio Graziani.

David Bates leads La Nuova Musica in 'Sacrifices', a programme of intensely dramatic oratorios from the mid Baroque. Three poignant tales of denail and sacrifice: St Peter's denial of Christ; Abraham's [narrowly averted] sacrifice of his son Isaac; and the Old Testament story of Jepthe, the hero commander who, before leading the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites, vows to God that if he is victorious, he will sacrifice the first living thing he meets upon his return.