BBC Proms“When I looked through the manuscripts, Barbara Strozzi repeatedly surfaced in my imagination. She was Cavalli’s composition and singing pupil. Year after year, she attended all her instructor’s melodramas set to music in the various theatres of Venice. What grew out of my imagination was a recital, a hypothetical tribute to Cavalli upon his death in 1676 from various members of the Venetian academies.”
Leonardo García Alarcón“Few composers paint human emotion as vividly or with greater insight, wit and poignancy than Barbara Strozzi: the pioneering Venetian composer, born 400 years ago, whose songs and madrigals stand alongside Monteverdi’s as some of the greatest of the age.”
At the end of the Renaissance, talented female poets and musicians were flourishing in the Italian palazzi, first in Florence, then Venice, but concerts often took place in salons rather than theatres, a moral and political sphere that did little to encourage the emancipation of women. Nevertheless, the two composers featured in this programme, Barbara Strozzi and Antonia Bembo, distinguished themselves with their musical accomplishments and resilience in the face of hardship. Both studied under Francesco Cavalli, the founder of Venetian opera. Strozzi’s madrigals are among the very finest in their genre, thanks to the extraordinarily expressive power of their texts and harmonies. As for Bembo, she dazzles us with her Italian virtuosity and draws our admiration with her French elegance. Her achievement is all the more remarkable when we know more about her personal history. In a show of courage and tenacity, she fled her abusive husband and lived out the rest of her days in Paris, where her talent was recognised by Louis XIV.
Cavalli, Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo (1639) “Mira questi due lumi” Venere
Bembo, Produzioni armoniche consacrate a Luigi XIV– ‘M’ingannasti in verità
Cavalli, L’Oristeo (1651) “Dimmi, Amor, che farò” Diomeda
Marini, La Romanesca – instrumentale
Strozzi, Che si può fare
Cavalli, Sinfonia pour la Notte (Egisto)
Strozzi, Lagrime mie
Merula, Aria Sopra La Cieccona
Strozzi, L’amante segreto
Strozzi, è Pazzo il moi core
Castello, Sonata Seconda – instrumentale
Cavalli, Ercole Amante “E vuol dunque Ciprigna”
Performance running time: approx. 1 hour and 10 minutes
Mariana Flores, soprano
Rodrigo Calveyra, recorder and cornet
Marie Bournisien, harp
Teodoro Baù, viola da gamba
Mónica Pustilnik, archlute
Francesca Benetti, theorbo, guitar
Jacopo Raffaele, harpsichord, organ and direction
Reliving the concert at Inter
“Le Donne di Cavalli refers to two Venetian composers of the 17th century: Antonia Bembo and Barbara Strozzi Both were taught by Francesco Cavalli. The six instrumentalists and vocalist Mariana Flores never ceased to delight the audience. The tireless harmonic invention was proliferated by Marini, Bertoli and Cavalli, who in turn played the flutes, harp, gamba, archlute, theorbo, organ, and muselar… “
Paul Flückiger for Le Quotidien Jurassien
Who would have imagined a few years ago that there could be an evening devoted exclusively to excerpts from works by Cavalli? This kind of concert is not unusual with Purcell or Handel, or even Monteverdi, but with Cavalli, it becomes an event in and of itself, fulfilling the dreams of the composer’s most fervent admirers, who can enjoy listening again to the composer’s most beloved and familiar works (Il Giasone, L’Ercole amante, La Calisto, Il Rapimento d’Elena…) and feel the excitement of discovering his lesser-known compositions. This compilation, which is arranged in chronological order and was masterfully assembled by Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, confirms how expressively flexible Cavalli’s language is.
Bernard Schreuders for ForumOpera
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