Luogo e data di registrazione		Martinskirche, Basel (Svizzera) - 28 giugno / 4 luglio 1973
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Johann Nikolaus Matthes
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 163-30 114/15 - (2 lp) - durata 32' 12" / 35' 03" - (p) 1973 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26537 2 - (2 cd) - durata 32' 12" / 35' 03" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

“Once one went in for intermedii in order to fill out a comedy, and now comedy is written for the intermedii”. These words of the Florentine comedy playwright and apothecary Antonfrancesco Grazzini (called ‘Il Lasca’), from the year 1565, mark the significance which the intermedii had won in the theatre life of the time. At first, in accordance with their designation as interludes, they were subordinate to the actual play, but soon outgrew this role and almost fully diverted the attention of both the artists and the public to themselves. Comedy eventually offered little more than a pretext for intermedii. Interludes in the form of musical, theatrical and even acrobatic offerings were then customary in various places. Of great importance to the form of stage intermedii those enacted in the aisles of grandiose ceremonial banquets, in this manner must the works ofthe leading composers of the time have been performed at the now famous pheasant-banquet of the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Lille in 1454. In the theatre intermedii already appear to have become a firmly established custom by the last quarter of the fifteenth century. They were inserted to separate the acts of classical latin comedies or of contemporary imitations (which had begun to be performed about that time), for theatre curtains of the modern sort were not then in use and the unities of classical drama forbade changes of scene. There were “invisible” (“non apparenti”) i.e. solely aural or musical, and “visible” (“apparenti”) intermedii, the latter staged examples which were likewise partly musical. Though four in number to begin with, the total of intermedii eventually rose to six: to the entr`actes proper similar pieces were added before and after the play. There was as a rule no connection with the subject matter of the play - or at least only a superficial one, and just as little between the intermedii themselves. What is certain, however, is that the custom of interpolating intermedii became universal, and that the lack of a tradition of them today does not deny their former relevance. A special category of intermedii, to which the important italian scholar Nino Pirrotta draws attention, are those called by him “courtly” (“aulici”) intermedii. Of these posterity has a much better representation. It was above all the Medici court in Florence, wishing to preserve its great reputation, which was responsible for the fame of the festivities it organised - whose climaxes were always formed by intermedii - being handed down to future generations. It is thus that the intermedii performed at Medici weddings in 1539, 1565, 1579, 1585 and 1589 have long been described in the record of music's history as events of great note. The last mentioned (of 1589) most decidedly form the zenith which intermedii reached in the sixteenth century, and also as individual works has their music come down to us almost in its entirety. The occasion of their performance was the marriage of Grand Duke Ferdinand I to Christine of Lorraine. Within the framework of the magnificent celebrations given for this event, the intermedii created for them were performed four times. In fact two of the performances - on 2nd and 15th May 1589 - were given with the comedy "La Pellegrina" by Girolamo Bargagli (died 1586). itself commissioned by Ferdinand in 1564, and presented by members of the "Accademia degli Intronati" from Bargagli’s hometown of Siena; they were also given once with “La Zingara” on 6th May and once with “La Pazzia" on 13th May, and were presented by the troop of players of the ‘Gelosi’ - a further testimony of how basically unimportant was the play which framed the intermedii. The conception of the interrnedio derives from Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, leading light of the famous Florentine “Camerata", in whose circle opera was to evolve a few years later. Bardi’s sovereignty in the spiritual life of Florence, which he occupied as a favourite of Grand Duke Francis and his Venetian wife Bianca Capello, was thoroughly shaken by the succession of Ferdinand, who was above all at daggers drawn with Bianca. In addition to this there sprang up in the form of Emilio de' Cavalieri a powerful rival, who in September 1588 was appointed Inspector-General of Arts and Artists to the court. He was befriended by the new grand duke, with whom he had probably come from Rome, when the former cardinal returned to his secular rank as successor to his late brother. It must have been a bitter blow to Bardi to now find Cavalieri installed at his side with equal rights in the direction of the intermedii. Bastiano de' Rossi, a friend of Bardi’s commissioned to write the official record of the festivities, had to be compelled by the grand duke to include a mentioned of Cavalieri’s co-direction, which he had originally omitted. In 1591 Cristofano Malvezzi, principal composer for the intermedii, published the music written for them. He did this on instruction from Cavalieri, who had himself received such a one from the grand duke. It is significant that here the aria by Bardi’s favourite composer Caccini is missing from the fourth intermedio (though later discovered by F. Ghisi in a Florentine manuscript), while Rossi in his afore-mentioned official record passes over the composition by Perl, who was Cavalieri’s favourite. This conflict finds even now its outcome in the researches of recent times: it has been attempted to increase Bardi’s undeniable reputation at the expense of Cavalieri. This could have disturbed the primarily humane and homogeneous picture of his rival, and would have been responsible for the intermedii taking a retrogressive step from polyphony to monody. However it can by no means be taken as certain that Bardi really wanted to bring about a radically new type of programme, not throughout in the intermedii tradition; the recourse of the five intermedii to musical settings of classical mythology - which moreover stretch to almost word by word renderings of Plato do not seem sufficient to bear this out. Besides, the artistic significance of the intermedii is not in any way diminished by the development toward monody and opera. On the contrary more recent interpretation of them, in opposition to earlier schools of thought, conforms to the idea that they are by no means to be considered as direct precursors of opera. This does not of course mean to say that they did not perhaps later endow opera in a number of ways, as for example Monteverdi’s orchestration or certain elements of Roman opera. They did not actually cease to exist with the coming of the new art but were rather absorbed into it. In contrast to opera they exhibited in the sixteenth century neither continuity of plot nor of musical setting. Each intermedio and even each of its numbers was mainly conceived to give pleasure per se, so as to captivate the spectator by stupendous stage effects and suitably atmospheric music, and this done with the gayest of colour and quickest scene change. Thus the intermedii of 1589 represent not the anabasis to opera, but the climax of an art form at that time already more than one hundred years old. The main part on the realisation of Bardi's ideas lay in the hands of what could be termed ‘professional‘ artists: the writer Ottavio Rinuccini and the composers Cristofano Malvezzi and Luca Marenzio. Besides these were employed as writers Bardi himself, Giovanni Battista Strozzi and Laura Guidiccioni, and as composers again Bardi and also Antonio Archilei, Jacopo Peri, Giulio Caccini and Cavalieri, though only the last named is represented by more than one contribution. From these are descended the true solo songs, for the three pieces by Malvezzi are of the ‘derived monody’ type, that is to say madrigals of several parts, in which the highest is sung and the others - though furnished with the text - are merely played. The remaining pieces by Archilei, Peri, Caccini and Cavalieri may well have been penned as solo numbers, though from the standpoint of later monody, in which “perfect melody” sought by concentrating on the musical issue to be subservient to the text and to interpret it as faithfully as possible. There were nevertheless excellent singers and players at the service of the intermedii, such as the famous Vittoria Archilei (wife of Antonio), Honofrio Gualfreducci and Peri himself, who were to find ample opportunity to enrich the glory of the court with their manifold talents. No efforts were spared with regard to the staging of the performances. We know that by the beginning of October 1588 preparations were already underway. Costumes and scenery were the work of Bernado Buontalenti, a man who since 1585 had likewise proved his worth. His stage machinery continued to be a main attraction well into the seventeenth century, and was considered as a fundamental critereon of success. Drawings in his own hand remain in existence, besides engravings by Agostino Caracci and Epifanio d’Alfiano. The climax of the whole affair was formed by the final intermedio. Here Cavalieri may well have really had a determining influence on the form it took. Not only did he appear on equal footing with Malvezzi as a composer, but it was also he who presented to the bride and bridegroom the concluding ode of homage, sung by a festival choir of his own creation. It is traditionally held that the words were fitted to the already complete music by his friend Laura Guidiccioni. Cavalieri’s composition however was to become - as has been established quite recently by American musicologist W. Kirkendale - the musical emblem of Medici Florence, and as the “Aria di Firenze" or the “Ballo del Granduca” was reworked in countless pieces of music well into the eighteenth century. If the Florentine intermedii of 1589 represent a high-water mark in the history of one of the most important forms of the much diversified dramatic art of their time, then the development of the type was by no means terminated with them. Indeed in the course of time it was to explore many different paths. It evolved into the ‘sinfonia’, into ballet, into the ‘framed plot’ device and finally into the balanced ‘plot parallelism’ - something like the Jesuit drama of the time, in which a play and an opera given together, alternating act by act. One of the most famous intermedii is Pergolesi’s “La Serva Padrona”. This art form seems at first strange and old fashioned, but has nevertheless proved its vitality well into the present century, for its historical format has proved valid for modern drama - as for example for Hofmannsthal’s “Ariadne auf Naxos”. In it is laid bare a mode of European esprit, ever close to the expression of some formal concept of thought, and which leaves untroubled the fullness of its manifestation, in the knowledge of its conditionality and the joy of its beauty. Theophil Antonicek (Translation by W. Edwin Evans) It was the custom at the court of the Medici to assign the composition of festive music to various composers. The “Intermedii et Concerti” for the ducal wedding of 1589 are no exception, and this explains the music’s striking and attractive variety of style. From the stilo madrigalesco, via the Canzonetta or the Villanella, to monodic singing, a rich spectrum of expression and sound is spread out. The traditional rubs shoulders with the avant garde, the popular contrasts with the artistic, and the glorious sound of polychoral pieces is set off against miniature forms almost in the style of chamber music. Contemporary accounts of the performance (by Rossi and Nono) agree on the apportionment of the music between voices and instruments. Frequently precise figures are given for the numbers of singers involved, but it is often only a knowledge of the contents that permits the appropriate strength to be guessed. The works for solo singer accompanied by chitarrone, lute and harpsichord, which are not far removed from Monteverdi’s stilo representativo, are clearly marked and even bear the names of the original solo singers. But otherwise a choice always has to be made between assigning the vocal parts to soloists or to ensembles. Evidently both were in use, and the present recording also adopts both possibilities as and when the text permits. In polychoral works a further graduation was occasionally achieved by using a small solo choir set off against a large chorus. The tradition records that, in general, instruments played the vocal parts too. Further possibilities for variation are for instruments to enter during the course of a work, or for reprises to be performed on instruments alone. The sources give detailed accounts of which instruments were used and at which points. Generally speaking, lutes and viols will depict an Apollonian mood, trombones a sombre one or the underworld; while a combination of all available instruments, plus guitars and tambourine, fills the air at the conclusion of the festival music (or Ballo). But no such set scheme of instrumentation was by any means adhered to. Quite often colourful mixtures of instruments produce most striking combinations of sound (for example, in the instrumental “Sinfonias”). In our performance of the “Pellegrina" music we were guided by two apparently contradictory but in fact complementary considerations. On the one hand, contemporary accounts provide valuable help in apportioning voices and instruments. We regarded this information as authoritative and have been guided by it to a large extent. On the other hand, the freedom in performance taken for granted at that time applies to this music too. Thus, although the instruments taking part are named, nothing is said about the allocation of parts, and in the case of plucked and struck instruments no indication is given as to when they are to play chords and when a melodic line. Incidentally, the original accounts of performances distinctly contradict one another on certain points. We take this to mean that the “Intermedii et Concerti” could be performed in different ways on different occasions in those days and may be so performed nowadays as well. Our recording therefore differs from traditional performances at certain points. The allocation of voices and instruments is of course constantly guided by that of 1589, but is otherwise closely related to the storyline, the text and the settings. Further criteria for the size of forces and the quality of sound were tempo, movement-structure, acoustics, and not least the principle of variety so important for performances on gramophone records. Hans-Martin Linde Translation by David Potter If these six intermedii do not in fact form a complete entity, then the focal point of the wedding of Ferdinand de' Medici and Christine of Lorraine does at least return in a leitmotif fashion. The poets were retained to follow the court’s taste and to pay homage to the bridal couple. Hymns of praise are addressed directly to them, and perhaps more remarkably- which seems paradoxical - in the form of free adaptation and fusion of the allegory of Italic and Greek myths. Hercules, known as Alcides (‘the Strong’), had once at the command of Eurystheus (persuaded by Zeus) to perform twelve Labours, and as the legend tells he fulfilled the tasks with cunning and wariness. On the twelfth and most difficult, where he had to bring before his jealous cousin Cerberus the three-headed hell-hound, he was assisted by the powers of Minerva (equivalent to the Greek Athena), the goddess of self-realisation and intellect, and protectress of the arts. In the second intermedio there occurs an allusion to Orpheus and Euridice, the ‘ideal lovers’ of antiquity; and Orpheus is moreover the great singer to whom creatures, rocks and trees listen; and the poet Arion’s song charms the dolphin which saves him. With Hymen, the god of marriage, we meet at the same time two goddesses of love: the Italic Venus and the Greek Aphrodite; and Harmony her daughter is the goddess of order and concord, here moreover in the new significance of the Pythagorean and Platonic concept of the cosmos as the guardian of the sirens, the nymphs of the ocean who lure seafarers with their singing. On Argos and Delos the goddess Hera was worshipped as a guardian and protectress, keeping watch over the lives of women, over motherhood and birth, and her enmity is directed at all those who break the sacred laws of Marriage. Finally there ist Flora the goddess of flowers and blossoms (to some extent a localised figure, and thus particularly attached to the River Arno), who bestows fertility, just as does Jupiter or Jove who governs thunden and lightning and who finally sends the refreshing rain storms after incessant drought. Joy and hope are the constant themes, the joy of deliverance from great danger, the hope for a great era which Harmony proclaims at the outset: a harmony of divinities and mortals; noteworthy as a complete contrast is the rage of the demon in the fourth intermedio in an inferno of Danteësque proportions. In the last intermedio, an epithalamium to the bridal couple, the circle completes iteself: Apollo, the god of light, descends to the earth, Rhythm and Harmony accompany him and proclaim eternal song, eternal 'harmony' - the Golden Age manifests iteself in Christine and Ferdinand. Gudrun Meier Translated by W. Edwin Evans
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"