Luogo e data di registrazione		Oratorio San Francesco Poverino, Firenze (Italia) - 30 settembre / 3 ottobre 2007
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Sound Engineer		Matteo Costa
	Artistic direction		Gian Andrea Lodovici
	Prima Edizione CD		BRILLIANT CLASSICS - 93796 - (2 CD's - durata 59' 44" & 61' 24") - (p) 2010 - DDD
	Cover		-
	Note		With the patronage of PROVINCIA DI PADOVA. Dedicated to Gian Andrea Lodovici

 

The apparently simple, even banal title Arie musicali that Frescobaldi uses for his collection covers an astonishing variety of musical and poetic forms, styles, content and compositional techniques. To take musical structure alone, for example, we find open forms in recitative style, variations on a bass, and strophic arias for one, two or three voices – and, finally, articulate mixed forms. Tradition and innovation are juxtaposed in a single publication of pieces defined under a single term, and these elements merit some detailed examination. Both books open with a number of songs or sonnets in recitative style, composed, that is, in the manner that seemed so novel and arresting when it was introduced in the first operas conceived and performed in Florence around 1600. This is manifestly a homage to the Florentine tradition and Frescobaldi’s adopted city, as well as to the house of Medici which, 30 years before, had played a central role in the experiment in opera and which the composer was now, from 1628 to 1634, serving as organist and maestro di cappella. With these pieces of pure musical recitation, Frescobaldi is looking to the past; by 1630, when the two books of Arie musicali were printed, ‘recitar cantando’ had already lost its allure as something novel and experimental, and after this date it would rarely be used as the sole basis for a piece of music. In addition, Frescobaldi takes a pure, uncompromising approach to recitative, creating a continuous outpouring of melody to give a faithful interpretation of the text without forcing it into any set musical structures or imposing many repetitions. The words are mostly declaimed syllabically, with only rare flights of melismatic writing. The single exception, and one that stands out for its vocal virtuosity, is the sonnet for solo bass, Donna siam rei di morte (CD 1, track 9). Text and music should therefore be considered as a single entity in the opening arias: recitative is a style that offers music the greatest scope for depicting the words. Take, for example, those pauses, laden with rhetorical pathos, on the words ‘Hor fuggo; hor torno, hor temo’ in Ardo e taccio (CD 1, track 3) and ‘Ardisci, e spera, e priega’ (Vanne, ò carta amorosa, CD 2, track 1). The words ‘l’anima unita/Ho teco (il sai mio Redentor, mio Dio)’ in A piè della gran Croce (CD 1, track 6) and ‘O beata armonia d’un cor soave’ (Degnati, ò gran Fernando, CD 1, track 2) prompt striking moves to distant harmonies. Note, too, the recurring chromaticisms on ‘lacrime’ (tears) and ‘pianto’ (weeping), and particularly on the words ‘ch’eternamente pianga’ (that I should weep for eternity) in Ohimè che fur (CD 2, track 4). Both singer and accompanist require a rich expressive range and a wealth of different timbres, together with clear enunciation, to be able to respond to the promptings of poet and composer. Through this very emphasis on the text and respect for the words, we find Frescobaldi applying recitative in his two books to an extremely wide range of content. The two songs that open the first book (Signor, c’hora fra gli ostri and Dègnati, oh gran Fernando (CD 1, tracks 1 & 2) are surprisingly self-referential: they dedicate the work to Ferdinando II de’ Medici and hope that it will be sympathetically received. The first songs ends with a wish for the future: ‘Come the time when you will victoriously/conquer the pride of wicked Thrace, I shall/tell of your glories in a thousand pages’. The prediction could not have been more mistaken: Ferdinando II undertook no hazardous and costly military ventures in an attempt to achieve glory, while Frescobaldi himself would leave Florence only a few years later, tempted by a new post at the papal court, and did not dedicate a single page, let alone a thousand, to his patron. The subsequent texts deal not only with the usual dramas of love, but also, more unusually, spiritual ones. Pieces such as Dove Signor (CD 1 track 4), Dove, dove sparir (CD 2, track 5) or A piè della gran croce (CD 1, track 6) employ vivid colours to give a musical depiction of the anguish of the repentant sinner or the torment of Mary Magdalene. Given the mood of strict religious observance that Ferdinando II’s two guardians – Christina of Lorraine and Maria Magdalena of Austria – instituted at the Medici court, these pieces, suited to devout and heartfelt private devotion, would have been particularly well received there. The rest of the pieces deal with love, whether happy or unhappy. The settings are predominantly strophic: coming after all the recitative, this is music having revenge on words. As well as simple repetition, Frescobaldi also has a fondness for strophic variation, where he keeps the bass unaltered but every time reshapes the vocal line, demonstrating his exceptional melodic gifts. Sometimes the bass line is one he has invented himself (as in Se l’onde ohimé, CD 1, track 8, and Troppo sotto due stelle, CD 1, track 11); in other examples, it is borrowed from the shared musical property of the time, such as the Romanesca (CD 1, track 7) and the Ruggiero bass (CD 2, track 6). On the other hand, the two pieces defined as a passacaglia and chaconne (Così mi disprezzate, CD 1, track 16, and Deh, vieni da me, CD 2, track 18) do not follow any set harmonic scheme or ostinato bass. Nevertheless, the two dances named in the titles are easily recognisable by their strong rhythmic character, with frequent syncopations and hemiolas. Many other duets have the character of a canzona da ballo because of the strong, triple-time rhythms (Begl’occhi io non provo, CD 1, track 18, Occhi che sete, CD 1, track 19, Non vi partite, CD 2, track 12, and Gioite o selve, CD 2, track 13). In Se l’Aura spira (CD 1, track 15) and Corilla danzando (CD 1, track 22), the words explicitly refer to dance: Modo Antiquo’s interpretation emphasizes this with a prominent contribution from the players. Formally, the greatest innovations are to be found in the pieces that divide into separate sections. The composer responds to each new line and change in the character of the text with a change of metre and new thematic material (for example, in Se m’amate, CD 1, track 17, Eri già tutta mia, CD 1, track 21, Bella tiranna, CD 2, track 14, Quanto più sorda, CD 2, track 17, and Oh dolore, CD 2, track 20). This is reminiscent of the form of the instrumental canzonas which Frescobaldi himself had published in a masterly collection a few years previously. But the seeds of future developments are more to be found in the structure of Così mi disprezzate (CD 1, track 16), Dove ne vai (CD 1, track 20) and Deh, vien da me (CD 2, track 18), where the melodic sections alternate with short recitatives. This, in embryo, is the form of the cantata and even the late Baroque opera, with their alternation of recitative and aria. And if Frescobaldi was not the first composer to take the first, timid steps in this direction and produce miniature cantatas ahead of their time, he was certainly the most influential. The fact that this was not the first time Frescobaldi was experimenting with arias structured in thematically defined sections is demonstrated by the three examples published in various miscellaneous collections as early as the beginning of the 1620s (CD 1, tracks 24–26). This is their first appearance on disc, and their inclusion makes a vital contribution to filling out the picture we have of Girolamo Frescobaldi the composer of secular vocal music. Bettina Hoffmann