Kurzbeschreibungen Galilei

The mythical life of Stradella, murdered on a Genoese piazza at the age of forty-two on the orders of a jealous rival in love, has inspired several novels and operas.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi owes much of his fame to La Serva Padrona, a comic intermezzo designed to be performed between the acts of an opera seria. In it, a maid and a servant conspire to convince their master to marry the maid. When Aldo Tarabella was asked to direct a performance of Pergolesi’s intermezzo, he wanted to do more than simply pair it with one of the operas it traditionally sits alongside – so he composed Il Servo Padrone, a companion piece, and a kind of sequel, to Pergolesi’s original.

This recording of lute music may be of most interest to fans of the lute and of the Renaissance-Baroque transition era, but it will be of considerable interest to them: it marks the first recording of the Libro d'intavolature di liuto, or Book of Lute Tablatures, of Vincenzo Galilei (1584). Galilei was the father of none other than astronomer Galileo. The work is given the title The Well-Tempered Lute here; that was not Galilei's title, but the music was apparently the first collection intended to demonstrate the possibilities of equal temperament that Bach would exploit so dramatically a century and a half later. Some scholars have opined that this was a primarily theoretical work; as music, it is both technically difficult and a little monotonous, consisting of groups of dances that may or may not have been danced to. Lutenist Žak Ozmo makes a good case for these little pieces as performer's music, differentiating learned counterpoint from works of a more expressive character.

The father of the controversial scientist Galileo, Vincenzo Galilei was not only a lutenist, singer and composer but also a prolific music theorist. He wrote several important treatises and was an active member of the Florence Camerata of his patron Giovanni de Bardi, with its aim of reviving the ancient Greek ideals of the union of music and poetry. Galilei studied music theory with Zarlino in Venice, where he published his first major theoretical work Fronimo, with its practical illustrations of expressive lute tablature, in 1568. His published music included collections of madrigals and of lute tablature, while his other writings reveal a modern approach to theoretical questions of his time.

Eleven imaginative and melodically striking vocal pieces from a collection published in 1660, towards the end of the relatively short life of one of the most famous female composers, Barbara Strozzi. Ranging in length from two minutes to 14 and with a variety of moods to match, they are performed with feeling (though not a lot of colour) by Emanuela Galli with jangling support from Ensemble Galilei’s three guitars, four theorbos and (only one) organ. The haunting Lagrime mie is alone worth the price of the disc.

To create a sense of the Venetian liturgical celebrations attendant on the birth of Louis XIV in 1638, Benjamin Chénier and the Galilei Consort have constructed a sumptuous performance from various works composed by Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovanni Rovetta, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, Claudio Monteverdi, and Giovanni Bassano. Rovetta had been chosen by Louis XIII to assemble the singers and instrumentalists, and his Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo from the Messa e Salmi Concertati form the core of this historical simulation, which is completed by a Sanctus and Agnus Dei by Rigatti, and various instrumental pieces and motets.