Trabaci

Liuwe Tamminga is considered one of the major specialists of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian repertoires for organ. He is the organist of the historic organs at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna together with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, where he plays the magnificent instruments by Lorenzo da Prato (1471-75) and Baldassarre Malamini (1596).

Sigismondo d'India, 'nobleman of Palermo', as he called himself, composer, singer and poet, was a true child of dawning century. Like his great contemporary Monteverdi, he succeeded in integrating polyphony into the new monodic style. But it is above all in his Musiche da cantar solo that he showed his measure as an innovator. These madrigals for solo voice, selected from around a hundred works he wrote in this genre, provide dazzling evidence of the fact.

In this extensive 50-disc set, Brilliant Classics presents 500 years of organ music. The pieces presented here offer a survey of diversity, value, and historical importance. The first portion of the set is devoted to pieces from the early period. Groundbreaking organ composers such as Cavazzoni and De Macque, who developed the capriccio and canzon forms and composed complex counterparts to the periods vocal music, are featured here. The Baroque and Classical eras are represented in this set by the likes of powerhouse composers Mozart, J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Haydn.

Theatrical chamber music might appear to be a contradiction in terms, but the unlikely idea is fulfilled by these sparkling, highly wrought trio sonatas. For despite their title, that is what they are: most composers of the 18th century may have used the sonata designation for this form, but Alessandro Stradella employed at least several of these works as preludes or overtures to his dramatic and sacred works such as the oratorio Susanna (already recorded on Brilliant Classics, BC94345).

Although the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa constitute the best-known part of his oeuvre, his religious music is no less important, revealing a completely different facet of the composer. Aside from the Responsoria (1611), of which Philippe Herreweghe recently made a magnificent recording (LPH 010), most of Gesulado’s religious music was published in 1603 under the title Sacrarum cantionum . Unlike the Responsoria , intended for Holy Week services, the motets of 1603 are settings of texts for all circumstances of the liturgical year. For this recording, made in the Santa Trinità abbey church in Venosa, ODHECATON has enriched the sound palette of its men’s voices with a few instruments, including an ensemble of violas da gamba. Liuwe Tamminga counterpoints this programme with selected pieces by Giovanni Maria Trabaci and Giovanni de Macque on an historical organ of the Venosa region.