Simone Vallerotonda

The aim of this musical tour – an expedition that travels backwards, from today to the Renaissance – is to reconstruct the overarching strands that comprise and unite five centuries of music of a "Roman school" famed for its contrapuntal rigour, melodic flair and popular roots.

Eine Reise durch das Rom des 17. Jahrhunderts, die raue und prächtige Stadt, in der Caravaggio und Stradella lebten. Strenger Kontrapunkt und gelehrte Polyphonie in den Lauten- und Tastenwerken von Kapsberger, Pasquini und Frescobaldi vermischen sich mit leichten Tänzen und populären Gitarrenliedern. Improvisation ist das verbindende Element beider Klangwelten: die Hochkultur von Kirchenkapellen und Adelspalästen sowie die Überlieferung von Straßen und Tavernen. Die Entscheidungen in Bezug auf Instrumente und Interpretation beruht auf sorgfältiger Untersuchung der ursprünglichen Quellen. Das berühmte „Antidotum Tarantulæ“ und weitere frühe Beispiele der Tarantella, wie sie vom Jesuitenforscher Athanasius Kircher aufgeschrieben wurden, werden nach historisch informierter Praxis auf Dudelsäcken, Trommeln und Gitarren gespielt.

A journey through seventeenth-century Rome, the rough and magnificent city where Caravaggio and Stradella lived. Strict counterpoint and learned polyphony in the lute and keyboard pieces by Kapsberger, Pasquini and Frescobaldi mingle with light dances and popular songs for guitar. Improvisation is the feature linking both sound-worlds: the high culture of church chapels and noble palaces, and the lore of streets and taverns. A careful study of the original sources guided the choices as to instruments and interpretation. According to historically informed practice, the celebrated Antidotum Tarantulæ and further early specimens of tarantella, as written down by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, are played on bagpipes, drums and guitars.

The aim of this musical tour - an expedition that travels backwards, from today to the Renaissance - is to reconstruct the overarching strands that comprise and unite five centuries of music of a "Roman school" famed for its contrapuntal rigour, melodic flair and popular roots. The label "romano", which many a musician of bygone eras proudly displayed after their name, is a sure sign of belonging to a school, to a special style. The backdrop for this excursion back in time is Rome, which in this same Jubilee Year of 2025 is the destination for millions of pilgrims on the march from every part of the world, each with their own history and culture. And the various stops on the journey present the music of the eternal city, a music that - no matter whether sacred or secular or whatever the type of work - is as capable today as then of moving, delighting and nourishing the soul of any human being. After exploring the personality of Giovanni Zamboni (L'ultimo romano, 2016) and the refinements of the French repertoire (Meditation, 2022), in this, his third solo album for Arcana, Simone Vallerotonda engages with contemporary and ancient music, broadening the horizons of the lute with a confidence and sense of novelty that fascinate and surprise.

The treatise Nuova inventione d’intavolatura, per sonare li balletti sopra la chitarra spagniuola (“A newly invented tablature for playing balletti on the Spanish guitar”), published in 1606 by Girolamo Montesardo, radically revolutionized the way to write and perform guitar music. For the first time, an extremely practical guitar notation was proposed: the alphabet. It consisted in the correspondence between any chord, whether major or minor, and a letter. This simplified way of writing finally enabled any amateur or professional musician who owned a guitar to play a dance or accompany a voice, by performing the “letters” written on a single stave with superimposed rhythmic information.

After "Roma ’600", dedicated to the cultured and popular music of the Eternal City, I Bassifondi explore the music of the most famous baroque guitarist in 17th-century Europe, who brought the guitar to England and then to the court of the Sun King in France: Francesco Corbetta. The trio, led by Simone Vallerotonda, welcomes a special guest, Bor Zuljan, one of the best lutenists on the scene, with whom Simone Vallerotonda plays a concerto and several "pièces de caractère" for two guitars. This collection represents the triumph of virtuosity, refinement and harmonic experimentation in the 17th century. A music that takes the guitars beyond their limits, competing, and perhaps surpassing, their historical rival, the lute. To seal the recording there are four vocal tracks dedicated to the Kings of England and the Duke of York, in the French style. A visionary recording of rare beauty!

After "Roma ’600", dedicated to the cultured and popular music of the Eternal City, I Bassifondi explore the music of the most famous baroque guitarist in 17th-century Europe, who brought the guitar to England and then to the court of the Sun King in France: Francesco Corbetta. The trio, led by Simone Vallerotonda, welcomes a special guest, Bor Zuljan, one of the best lutenists on the scene, with whom Simone Vallerotonda plays a concerto and several "pièces de caractère" for two guitars. This collection represents the triumph of virtuosity, refinement and harmonic experimentation in the 17th century.

On his second solo album for Arcana, after L’ Ultimo romano , Simone Vallerotonda explores the metaphysical and sensual world of seventeenth-century French lute music. The result is Méditation : four suites in four different keys, each associated with a season and with one of the four ‘humours’ (melancholic/autumn, sanguine/spring, phlegmatic/winter, choleric/summer) that were said to characterise human beings in their temperament and physical traits.