400 years of sweet tor­ment – three gen­er­a­tions of com­posers

The setting is Italy during the first decades of the seventeenth century. At this time, new and exciting ideas were emerging on the Italian music scene and one of the innovators was Claudio Monteverdi from Cremona in Northern Italy, whose works caused a polemic due to their daring use of dissonance. In his music, the rules of counterpoint were sometimes bent to accommodate and reflect the passions expressed in the text. Monteverdi taught the opera composer Francesco Cavalli, who enjoyed great popularity in Venice around the middle of the 17th century and some of whose works were also performed in Paris during the youth of Louis XIV. Cavalli in turn was the teacher of the Venetian singer Barbara Strozzi, who began her career in house concerts at the home of her adoptive father and later took an active part in the meetings of the Accademia degli Unisoni, the circle of intellectuals that also convened there. Between 1644 and 1664, numerous collections of Strozzi’s vocal music were published, largely for solo voice with basso continuo. The programme contains works by these three composers, whereby we seek to explore how a musical style is carried from teacher to pupil but also evolves with each new composer. The title of the concert is inspired by Claudio Monteverdi’s famous Si dolce è’l tormento, as this year marks the 400th anniversary of its first appearance in print.

Ensemble Elegos consists of young musicians specialised in Historical Performance. The Italian tenor Enrico Busia is an experienced performer of the early baroque music of his home country. Sólveig Thoroddsen and Sergio Coto Blanco are early plucked instrument specialists.

Programme: selected works by Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli, Barbara Strozzi, Girolamo Frescobaldi and Angelo Michele Bartolotti

Ensemble Elegos:
Enrico Busia tenor
Sólveig Thoroddsen baroque harp
Sergio Coto Blanco theorbo and baroque guitar