
Booking and details
Dates Fri, May 05 — Sun, May 07, 2023
Tickets $45
Duration 80 minutes, no intermission
The Folger Consort is excited to be joined by Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble. Kaleidoscope, directed by Arianne Abela, is recognized for presenting vocal music with artistic distinction, while celebrating racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. Like Folger Consort, the ensemble delights in performing both early and new music. For this program, Kaleidoscope’s singers will join our ensemble of violins, viol, and harpsichord for a program centered around the timeless music of Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries. The program also includes works by living composers Caroline Shaw and Jonathan Woody.
This program will also be available for on-demand streaming from May 12, 2023 to May 26, 2023. Click here to purchase advance on-demand access today.
Who’s Who

Arianne Abela
Arianne Abela is Director of the Choral Program at Amherst College. Abela recently served on conducting faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, and is founder and director of the Detroit Women’s Chorus and Detroit Justice Choir, ensembles dedicated to social-justice and community empowerment. She directed Detroit’s historic Fort Street Chorale, conducted choirs at University of Michigan, and the UMS Choral Union. Focusing her efforts on community building through song, Abela founded The House of Clouds and has worked closely with Musicians Take a Stand to organize over a dozen benefit concerts for charities and various causes across the country.
In the realm of opera, has guest conducted opera productions with various Michigan-based opera companies including Detroit’s OperaMODO, and serves as music director for Vancouver-based opera company, Re:Naissance. Prior to her time in Detroit, Abela lived in Connecticut where she served on faculty at Wesleyan University, Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, The Westover School and Notre Dame High School in West Haven. In 2012, Abela was featured conducting on NBC’s Today Show and was a semi-finalist in Season 8 of America’s Got Talent as director of Connecticut-based 3 Penny Chorus and Orchestra. The ensemble later recorded for the soundtrack of Hollywood film Walk of Shame starring Elizabeth Banks.
Abela received her doctorate in conducting from the University of Michigan with Jerry Blackstone and Eugene Rogers, holds a master’s degree in choral conducting from Yale University with Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, and Simon Carrington, and bachelor of arts from Smith College. Abela sings professionally in ensembles across the United States and Canada such as Yale Choral Artists, sounding light, Etherea Vocal Ensemble, Arkora, and Audivi. Originally from the San Francisco bay area, she sang with the San Francisco Girls Chorus for many years.

Risa Browder
Studied at Oberlin Conservatory, the Royal College of Music in London, and the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland. She has performed with the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert, London Classical Players, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, the Washington Bach Consort, the National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra and the Bach Sinfonia, and with the chamber ensembles London Baroque, the Purcell Quartet, and REBEL. She co-directs Modern Musick, in residency at Georgetown University; is the orchestra director at H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program; is the co-director of the Baltimore Baroque Band. She plays a violin made by Jacob Stainer in 1641.

Nathaniel Cox
Nathaniel Cox enjoys a varied musical career both as one of North America’s leading cornetto players, and as an accomplished continuo player on lute and theorbo. In addition to co-directing the New England-based ensemble for 17th-century music In Stile Moderno, he performs with ensembles such as Apollo’s Fire, Piffaro, Dark Horse Consort, Bach Collegium San Diego, The Toronto Consort, TENET Vocal Artists, and Blue Heron. Nathaniel holds bachelor’s degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory in both Russian literature and trumpet performance, as well as Master’s degrees from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in cornetto and historical performance practice. He has dedicated himself to the study of historical ornamentation, and has sought to find a performance style that is both authentic to the early Baroque era and unique to his musical voice.Nathaniel loves to share his passion with students, and has taught at the Amherst Early Music Festival and the San Francisco Early Music Society Baroque Workshop. Besides his performance career, Nathaniel works as a software engineer for the data-privacy company Cloaked, and loves spending time with his two-year-old son Simon.

Wade Davis
Wade Davis is in high demand as a solo performer and chamber music collaborator. He regularly performs with the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort, as a guest with the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, and his own baroque ensemble, S’amusant, co-founded with Patrick Merrill, harpsichordist in 2013. Other appearances include Piccolo Spoleto Early Music Festival, Indianapolis Early Music Festival, The MOJA Festival, The Spire Series, and Bach Ascending. Known for wide variety of styles, he’s also featured on popular indie music concert series such as So Far Sounds Baltimore and has guested with New York-based band Reserved for Rondee and Baltimore-based band Outcalls in addition to the “Swans for Relief” project video curated by Misty Copeland to raise funds for dancers whose companies had been affected by the 2020 pandemic shutdowns. Wade maintains a private studio of cello students in both Baltimore and Washington, D.C. He holds both a Master’s Degree in Baroque Cello Performance and a Graduate Performance Degree in Historical Cello from Peabody Conservatory as a student of John Moran.

Robert Eisenstein
Over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years include the recent Measure + Dido at the Kennedy Center and Napa Valley Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice at Shrathmore, The Fairy Queen, and Hildegard Von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum at the Washington National Cathedral. Director of the Five College Early Music Program; Music Director for the Five College Opera Project production of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero. Faculty member of Mount Holyoke College, where he teaches music history and performs the viola de gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle. He is an active participant in the Five College Medieval Studies. Recipient of Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship by the director of a college early music ensemble.

Haitham Haidar
Haitham Haidar is a Lebanese-Palestinian Canadian tenor, currently based in Montreal. He is a proud graduate of Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, McGill’s Schulich School of Music, and the University of British Columbia. Praised for his ‘ductile,’ ‘bright,’ and ‘robust’ tenor, Haitham enjoys performing oratorio, opera, and chamber music across North America, Europe, and Asia. Most notably, Haitham was seen as the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John Passion in Beirut, Lebanon. Haitham is also the co-founder of Voices of the Unheard, a collective that aims to uplift marginalized artists and explore a new template of ‘classical music’ performance that prioritizes inclusivity and representation. Haitham’s approach to performance has always been humanity first. Being an Arab immigrant in North America comes with its unique set of oppressive challenges and it is because of that and what he sees around him in the field, that he aims to touch people’s hearts with music and compassion and make change in the world the best way he knows how.

Noah Horn
As a conductor whose work has been praised as “superb” (The New York Times), “well-prepared and joyful” (Detroit Free Press), and “excellent“ and “fluent and fresh” (Opera News), Dr. Noah Horn presently serves as Director of Choral Activities at Williams College, chorus master for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director and founder of the professional vocal ensemble Audivi. With Audivi he has conducted historically-informed landmark performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor and Monteverdi’s Vespers, as well as premiering dozens of new compositions and touring several times around the US. He has worked with ensembles in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, Canada, and the Philippines.
For several years, Dr. Horn served as director of choral activities at Wayne State University, where he directed the choirs and led the graduate program in choral conducting. Also a passionate orchestral conductor, he has served as interim director of orchestral activities at Wesleyan University and worked with orchestras around the country. Other teaching assignments have included posts at Oberlin Conservatory, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Western Michigan University, and University of Michigan. His former graduate students hold choral artistic director positions across the country.
As a tenor specializing in oratorio, Dr. Horn has sung solo roles in much of the standard repertoire from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. As a choral tenor, he regularly sings with professional ensembles across the country, such as Conspirare and Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble. As an organist, Dr. Horn has given recitals in several countries, and has served as music director at a number of churches; recently he won several competitive national prizes from the American Guild of Organists. Dr. Horn also works freelance as a pianist, harpsichordist, trumpet player, composer, and audio and video engineer. He appears in numerous commercial recordings, including five albums released on Naxos Records.
Dr. Horn holds the D.M.A., M.M.A., and M.M. degrees from Yale University in choral conducting, and the M.M. and B.Mus. degrees from Yale and Oberlin College in organ performance. He lives in western Massachusetts.

Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble
The Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble presents vocal music with artistic excellence, while celebrating racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. Led by Artistic Director Arianne Abela, the group of professional singers from around the United States and Canada have thriving national and international solo careers as well as a love for vocal chamber music, and focus primarily on presenting early and new music. In addition to performances and artistic residencies, the ensemble engages in creative educational outreach to audiences and students, particularly in communities of color, and promotes the study, research, performance, and recording of music from various eras with special attention to the intersection of arts and social justice.
Featuring
Michele Kennedy, soprano
Sherezade Panthanki, soprano
Michael Walker, countertenor
Haitham Haidar, tenor
Noah Horn, tenor
Andrew Padgett, bass-baritone

Christopher Kendall
Christopher Kendall is founder of the Folger Consort. He has recently become dean emeritus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance after serving the two-term limit of 10 years as the school’s dean, where he was responsible for establishing the University of Michigan Gershwin Initiative, for re-instituting international touring, for the funding and design of a $30M expansion/renovation of the music building, and for launching the interdisciplinary enterprise ArtsEngine and its national initiative a2ru (Alliance for the Arts at Research Universities). In Washington, in addition to his work with Folger Consort, since 1975 he has been Artistic Director and conductor of the 21st Century Consort, the new music ensemble-in-residence at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Mr. Kendall served as Director of the University of Maryland School of Music from 1996 to 2005 during a period of rapid development at the School and its move to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 1987 to 1992 and Director of the Music Division and Tanglewood Institute of the Boston University School for the Arts from 1993 to 1996, Mr. Kendall has guest conducted many orchestras and ensembles in repertoire from the 18th to the 21st centuries. His recordings can be heard on the Bard, Delos, Nonesuch, Centaur, ASV, Arabesque, Innova, and Smithsonian Collection labels.

Michele Kennedy
Praised as “an excellent and impassioned” soprano possessing “a graceful tonal clarity that is a wonder to hear” (San Francisco Chronicle), Michele Kennedy is a versatile specialist in early and contemporary music. Her recent concert venues include Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, The Getty Museum, Lincoln Center, and Washington National Cathedral.
Michele has been a featured soloist in Bach’s St. John Passion with Voices of Music and The San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Handel’s Messiah with Trinity Wall Street Choir, Poulenc’s Gloria and Messiah with The Bach Society of Saint Louis, Undine Smith Moore’s MLK Oratorio at U.C. Berkeley, and selected Bach Cantatas with American Classical Orchestra. In demand across the country, Michele recently debuted with Portland Baroque Orchestra in the ‘Summer Fireworks’ of Handel and Purcell, with San Francisco Ballet in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in her Carnegie Hall mainstage debut with The Hollywood Film Orchestra. Her singing is highlighted on two upcoming new albums: Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with The Thirteen and Dark Horse Consort, and In Her Hands with AGAVE Baroque, featuring pieces by trailblazing female composers from over the ages.
A lifelong advocate of new works, Michele has sung premieres with Experiments in Opera, Harlem Stage Opera, Mimesis Ensemble, Five Boroughs Music Festival, and The New York Philharmonic. This season, she is traveling with Lorelei Ensemble in a world premiere tour of Julia Wolfe’s Her Story – an outspoken celebration of women’s civil rights – in concert with the Nashville, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras. She is also a member of Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble: a group of early and contemporary music specialists that champions the voices of women and artists of color on the stage, and in the field at large.
Michele completed her musical studies at Yale University, Yale School of Music, and New York University. A lover of redwood groves and bay vistas, she lives in Oakland with her husband, visual artist Benjamin Thorpe, and their daughter, Audra May. Please find more at www.michele-kennedy.com

Paula Maust
Paula Maust is a performer, scholar, and educator dedicated to fusing research and creative practice to amplify underrepresented voices and advocate for social change. She is the creator of Expanding the Music Theory Canon, an open-source collection of music theory examples by women and composers of color. A print anthology based on the project will be released with SUNY Press in December 2023. Paula also researches the pejorative language used to describe early modern women on stage and harmony books by nineteenth-century women. She has published articles in Women and Music and the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music, and she is an Early Modern Area Editor for Grove Music Online’s gender and sexuality revision project.

Andrew Padgett
Bass-baritone Andrew Padgett is an accomplished interpreter of early music from medieval to baroque repertoire, and has appeared as a soloist in concert venues worldwide, including NYC’s Lincoln Center and the Esplanade Concert Hall in his hometown, Singapore. He regularly sings with Emmanuel Music on their long-running Bach Cantata Series. Andrew holds a B.S. in physics, an M.M. in voice from UC Santa Barbara, and an M.M. in Early Music from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. He lives in Boston with his wife and son, and is an avid comic book reader, miniature painter, and homebrewer.

Sherezade Panthaki
Soprano Sherezade Panthaki‘s international success has been fueled by superbly honed musicianship; “shimmering sensitivity” (Cleveland Plain Dealer); a “radiant” voice (The Washington Post); and vividly passionate interpretations, “mining deep emotion from the subtle shaping of the lines” (The New York Times). She has been described as “a phenomenon” and praised for the “multifold splendor of her singing” by The San Francisco Chronicle. An acknowledged star in the early-music field, Ms. Panthaki has developed ongoing collaborations with many of the world’s leading interpreters including Nicholas McGegan, Mark Morris, Simon Carrington, Matthew Halls, and Masaaki Suzuki, with whom she made her New York Philharmonic debut in a program of Bach and Mendelssohn.
Ms. Panthaki’s 2019/20 season included returns to Minnesota Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York, The Choir and Orchestra of Trinity Wall Street on tour in Montreal, as well as debuts with Voices of Music, and the NDR Hannover Radiophilharmonie, Germany. She rejoined the Boston Early Music Festival
(BEMF) in Bremen, Germany performing and recording Graupner’s opera Antiochus und Stratonica. Following a triumphant Handelian performance in the title role of Atalanta with Philharmonia Baroque, Ms. Panthaki was featured at the Caramoor Music Festival in an operatic recital, “Love and Revenge: The Baroque Diva” with the Helicon Ensemble. She tours frequently as a guest artist with the New York City based Parthenia Viol Consort, including a special performance for the closing ceremonies of the 2019 Venice Biennale. Recent album releases include Handel’s oratorio Joseph and his Brethren with Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque, Graupner’s Antiochus und Stratonica with BEMF, and the chamber duets of Agostino Steffani with director Jory Vinikour.
Ms. Panthaki is a founding member of and artistic advisor to the newly-debuted Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, a one-voice-per-part octet celebrating racial and ethnic diversity in performances and educational programs of early and new music. Since 2018, she has been the Vocal Music Coordinator and featured soprano soloist at the Bach Virtuosi Festival held every summer in Portland, Maine. She has maintained a steady schedule of online performances during the pandemic – making virtual recordings for Cleveland based Les Delices, New York based Salon Sanctuary Concerts, the Bach Virtuosi Festival in Portland, self-accompanied recitals of 17th century English and Italian songs for Public Radio and various arts series, teaching a month-long online Baroque opera workshop for Grand Valley State University in Michigan, as well as numerous guest lectures on Vocal Health, Vocal Technique, and Baroque Performance Practice for various universities across the United States.
Past performances of note include Vivaldi with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and St. Louis and Detroit Symphonies; Mozart and Bach with the Milwaukee Symphony, countless performances of works of Bach, Handel and Purcell with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Music of the Baroque; Handel’s Saul with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in Toronto; the title role in Handel’s Almira in concert at BEMF; the role of Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Handel’s L’Allegro and the title role of Galatea in the premiere performances of Acis and Galatea with the Mark Morris Dance Group; Handel’s Solomon with the Radio Kamer Filharmonie (Holland); Handel at Carnegie Hall with William Christie and the Yale Philharmonia; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s; and Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions with St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. She has also appeared as soloist at the Oregon Bach Festival and Berkeley Early Music Festival. Handel’s Messiah is a signature piece, which she has performed with Bach Collegium Japan, the National Symphony Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Colorado Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Nashville and San Antonio Symphonies, among others. Ms. Panthaki has also been featured in multiple concerts at Trinity Wall Street’s “Bach at One Cantatas” series in New York City.
With her “fresh, youthful sound … with a welcome hint of steel” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), Ms. Panthaki’s repertoire extends well beyond the music of the Renaissance and Baroque. Recent engagements have included Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Houston Symphony and the Orlando Ballet; Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Haydn’s L’isola disabitata, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the American Classical Orchestra; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Orlando Philharmonic; Brahms’ Requiem with the Calgary Philharmonic and the Winter Park Bach Festival, John Tavener’s The Last Discourse with Orchestra of St. Luke’s and St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys; Mozart’s Requiem with Music of the Baroque; Mozart’s Exsultate jubilate and Requiem with the Washington Bach Consort; Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise and Strauss lieder at the Bari International Music Festival, as well as performances of Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Britten’s War Requiem, and Poulenc’s Stabat Mater and Gloria.
Ms. Panthaki has championed works by women composers of the Baroque on recording and in live performance with La Donna Musicale at the Utrecht Early Music Festival (Holland), the Murten Classics Festival (Switzerland), and the Banco de La Republica series (Colombia). She is a founding member of the early music vocal quartet Gravitación, with which she has recorded medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque works.
Born and raised in India, Ms. Panthaki began her musical education at an early age. Following intensive study and earning top distinction as a young pianist, she turned to singing and found a more personal and expressive means to connect with audiences. She holds a Masters degree in Voice Performance from the University of Illinois, and an Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. She is the winner of multiple awards at Yale University, including the prestigious Phyllis Curtin Career Entry Prize. Ms. Panthaki has served as Vocal Coach for the Yale Baroque Opera Project, and currently teaches voice lessons to graduate choral conductors and scholarship winners at Yale University.

Michael Walker
Praised for his “luminous tone, weighted with pathos” (Upstage), countertenor Michael Walker has performed oratorios and recitals throughout the United States and abroad. He frequently performs in historically informed performances ranging from the Early Renaissance to the Late Baroque eras. As an interpreter of early music, Michael has been a featured soloist with Alchymy Viols, Mon Choeur, Echoing Air, Concentus and the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project. Additionally, Michael has been the featured alto soloist in G. F. Handel’s Messiah with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and the Kokomo Symphony Orchestra, in J. S. Bach’s Magnificat with the Marquette Choral Society, and in Giovanni Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the AIMS International Music School in the United Kingdom.
Michael is passionate about expanding the definitions of the western musical canon and historical performance practices. Particularly comfortable in the realm of interpreting art songs and contemporary works, as a recitalist, Michael has presented various art songs programs such as Alchymy Viols’ Deep River: American Spirituals My Mother Taught Me (Second Presbyterian Church, IN), Across the Pond: British Art Songs (Christ Church Cathedral, IN), Duet Recital: Romantic Era Joint-Lieder with fortepiano (Indiana University, IN), and An Evening of Organ and Voice: Sacred Baroque Works (Church of the Nativity Episcopal, AL).
As an advocate for early music and the classical performing arts, Michael serves as the vice president of Indianapolis Baroque Orchestras and as a board member on the boards of directors of Early Music America. Currently, he holds the position of Annual Giving Manager at Central City Opera and as a staff singer at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, Colorado. Michael holds a Master of Music in Early Music Performance Practices from the Historical Performance Institute at Indiana University and Bachelor of Science in Business Management from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Playlist | Early Music Seminar
Pre-Concert Discussion – Friday, May 5

Join Christopher Kendall and Robert Eisenstein, co-Artistic Directors of the Folger Consort, for a lively discussion with guest artists from 7:00pm-7:30pm before the Friday, May 5 performance.
Free entry with concert ticket.
Program and Notes
Folger Consort with Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble
Claudio Monteverdi: Hor che’l ciel e la terra
Marco Uccellini: Aria sopra la Bergamasca
Monteverdi: Quel sguardo sdegnosetto
Monteverdi: Interrotte speranze
Alessandro Piccini: Ciaconna, for theorbo
Monteverdi: Laudate dominum
Monteverdi: O rossignuol
Caroline Shaw: Dolce cantavi
Monteverdi: Zefiro torna
Giovanni Battista Fontana: Trio Sonata no. 8
Monteverdi: Nigra sum from Vespro della beata Virgine
Girolamo Frescobaldi: Toccata, for organ
Frescobaldi: Canzona per due bassi
Jonathan Woody: Nigra sum
Monteverdi: Eri già tutta mia
Salamone Rossi: Sonata sopra l’aria di Ruggiero
Monteverdi: Beatus vir
Program Notes
by Robert Eisenstein
Claudio Monteverdi (1547-1643) is unquestionably one of the greatest composers in the western tradition. He stands on the cusp of the transition from Renaissance to Baroque style. Like certain other composers (Beethoven comes to mind) who witnessed great changes in musical style during their lifetimes, Monteverdi did not reject the old styles at all, but instead combined them with radically new ideas to create his own unique synthesis. Monteverdi was the son of a chemist-barber-surgeon from Cremona. His early musical training was in the capable hands of Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, maestro di capella at Cremona Cathedral. By the 1590s Monteverdi was employed at the Mantuan court as a string player and was promoted to the post of maestro di cappella in 1602. He composed his opera, L’Orfeo in 1607, and soon after he became maestro at the much more prestigious San Marco in Venice, where he remained until his death. By 1600 his reputation as a madrigalist was well established, and attacks on his harmonic innovations by the conservative theorist Artusi soon appeared. Monteverdi’s views on dissonance (which so upset Artusi) were expressed by others of his time as well, and freer treatment of dissonance in the service of the text is present in the works of many composers. Monteverdi met the challenge head-on. In the Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605) he issued a famous defense, describing the two “practices”, the traditional one of Renaissance polyphony, and the second based on ancient Greek principles. The highest goal of the latter was that of moving the affections, of using music in the service of the text. The new style has its roots as early as the 1560s, when certain madrigal composers began to be willing to break up the smooth flow of Renaissance polyphony and to introduce unprepared dissonances in the service of the text. The humanistic gentlemen-scholars of the Florentine Camerata, in their quest to duplicate the effects of ancient Greek music, decided to do away with polyphony completely, and developed a way of singing solo with a simple chordal accompaniment that could more powerfully express a poem. This texture, known as monody, becomes the common one for music of the 17th-century.
Monteverdi was able to integrate Renaissance practice with the revolutionary techniques of the Florentine monodists, using them in chamber music and opera, and was instrumental in bringing the new developments in theatrical music to church forms. Monteverdi first made his mark with madrigals. He left us nine books of madrigals, of which the first five are Renaissance style for the most part, usually with five voices and no obligatory accompaniment. The sixth adds chordal instrumental accompaniment, and the final three books are wholly in the new concertato style of the Baroque, with various numbers of voices accompanied by figured bass and frequently with independent instrumental parts. We have indicated the source for our selected madrigals on page 3 to make clearer the evolution of his style over the years.
Although sacred music around 1600 was in general much more conservative than theater music and madrigals, Monteverdi was one of the first to use the new styles in liturgical composition. His famous collection for Vespers of 1610 is in many ways his masterpiece, being a compilation of psalms and sacred songs for the evening service that is at once a meditation on the age-old chant and a brilliantly theatrical and modern conception. We include here from the Vespers the sacred song Nigra sum, which sets verses from the Song of Songs.
Monteverdi’s 1642 publication, the late work Selva Morale e Spirituali, or “moral and spiritual forest” provides a refuge for various musical and poetic creations. By the 1630s Monteverdi had become much less active in the day-to-day affairs of San Marco and had turned over most of his compositional duties to his younger colleagues. He had taken holy orders in 1632 and seemed ready to enjoy an old age of quiet contemplation and retreat. However, the last few years of his life witnessed an incredible burst of creative activity, including the Eighth Book of Madrigals, his operas Ulysses and Poppea, and the Selva. It is a huge publication, in ten part books containing 37 distinct pieces in all the current styles and textures of the time. Of course, it is likely that many of these compositions date from much earlier than 1642, and in fact some are based on a few of his earlier pieces. Nonetheless it is a monumental undertaking. Laudate Dominum, for solo voice and continuo, is one of the many Vespers psalm settings in the collection. We close with another Vespers psalm from the Selva, the Beatus vir for six voices, two violins, and continuo. This piece has a secular model- Monteverdi’s canzonetta Chiome d’oro. The relentless ground bass, lively violin ritornelli and virtuosic and expressive voice writing combine in a wonderful example of Monteverdi’s concertato style.
But Monteverdi’s great gift to us is that he did not reject the old practice while he embraced the new. He succeeds in moving our emotions with all his music, whether it is in his most conservative church music, his passionate madrigals, the stark declamatory recitative of the radical Florentine humanists or the synthesis of all these styles present in so much of his music.
Marco Uccellini (1603-1680) was a violinist who served as the head of instrumental music at the Este court in Ferrara from the 1640s. Uccellini’s solo violin sonatas are quite adventurous, both in terms of violin virtuosity and harmonic invention. Our selection, for two violins and continuo, the Aria sopra la Bergamasca, is a bit different. It is from his 1645 publication, which contains numerous settings of popular dances, tunes, and grounds like the Bergamasca, the simplest and perhaps most engaging of 17th-century ground basses.
The Bolognese lutenist-composer Alessandro Piccinini (1566-1638) was a member of a musical family. He and his two brothers were taught the lute by his father, Leonoardo Maria Piccinini, and Alessandro in turn taught his son, also named Leonardo Maria. Alessandro is known today primarily for the two volumes of music for lute and theorbo he composed. The second was published posthumously by his son in 1639. Piccinini claims in the preface to his first publication to have invented the archlute in the 1590s- it is possible that he did, although the long-necked theorbo (also known as cittarone) had already been in use at the time. Piccinini was a gifted composer, as this wonderful ciacona demonstrates. Unfortunately, the two books of lute and theorbo music are all that survive of his output.
“Dolce Cantavi” by Caroline Shaw is an exquisite, chant-like evocation of birds and breezes and all they connote, in poetry by Francesca Turina Bufalini Contessa di Stupinigi (1544-1641), for treble voices. It was commissioned and premiered by TENET Vocal Artists.
We include here a trio sonata by Giovanni Battista Fontana (c. 1580-1630). Fontana was from Brescia, but likely worked in Venice. If he did, he most certainly knew and probably played under Monteverdi. These sonatas are both delightful examples of the form and illustrate the rapid development of virtuoso violin music in the early 17th-century. Like most early sonatas, they are made up of a series of short, well-defined sections that prefigure the separate movements of later instrumental music.
Jonathan Woody has this note about his Nigra Sum:
“[The countertenor] Reggie Mobley came to me with the idea for this piece a couple of years ago to draw attention to the microaggressions that so many of us artists of color have faced in the classical music field. From seemingly innocuous statements after concerts to downright blatant racism, his idea really spoke to me. I’ve experienced these moments myself, but rather than add my words to the piece, I wanted (and he suggested) to use the language of our beloved baroque masters to really draw out the contrast of that beauty with ugliness of the sentiments. The first movement conjures a Renaissance motet, inspired by the transition from stile antico to stile moderno in the Italian early baroque. The second movement is inspired by a north German 17th century sort of rhetoric, with fast-moving cadential material giving urgency to the words ‘I’d hate to run into you at night,’ among others. The final movement is a triple time cascading figuration very much inspired by cantata BWV21 of Johann Sebastian Bach, weaving the ‘Nigra
Sum’ chant in amongst the polyphony. My hope is that the performers and audiences will be reassured by the power of music to create universal community while being perhaps horrified by how far we have yet to go in truly achieving that community.”
Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) was a native of Ferrara and studied with the influential madrigalist Luzzaschi. He was not, according to reputation, a well-rounded or well-educated person. However, he was one of the great keyboard virtuosi of his time. A contemporary theorist said that he “was a very coarse man” and that “all his knowledge is at the ends of his fingertips.” Be that as it may, his playing was highly prized, and his arias and instrumental works, especially the keyboard toccatas like the one performed here, can be as dramatic and engaging as any of the time. He is perhaps best known for his keyboard works today, although he published a great deal of ensemble music and some ravishing vocal music. According to a contemporary witness, “although [his] printed works give sufficient witness of his ability, in order to judge of his profound knowledge it is necessary to hear him improvise toccatas.” The canzona for two bass instruments performed here is a forward-looking work, not at all like the canzoni of the late 16th century. This piece is overtly dramatic and harmonically progressive.
The Jewish composer Salamone Rossi (c.1570-1628) was a string player and composer whose entire career was centered in his native city of Mantua. His earliest pieces are dedicated to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, and Rossi did have strong connections to the court, appearing from time to time on various salary rolls. He also had connections to the Jewish theatrical troupes in Mantua, which were active not only in the ghetto but in the Christian community at large and at court. Rossi (and his sister Europa, a famous singer) were unusually favored by Vincenzo, as seen in his decree that Rossi did not have to wear the compulsory yellow badge imposed on the Jewish community. Rossi is best known today for his 1622 publication Hashirim Asher Lishlomo, (or Songs of Solomon, pun probably intended.) which contains settings in Hebrew of psalms, hymns, and other prayers for synagogue use. We perform two pieces from this publication. This is the first surviving attempt to print western musical notation underlaid with Hebrew. The music runs from left to right; since Hebrew is written from right to left, the printer’s solution was to retain the right order of letters within a word, but to underlay the words from left to right to correspond with the music. This is not Rossi’s only musical first. He is responsible for the first printed continuo madrigals, preceding his colleague Monteverdi, and for writing some of the earliest violin sonatas. It is not surprising that a string player would compose plentiful instrumental music. We perform the sonata on the Aria di Ruggiero, in which Rossi instructs the players to repeat the last section “a little faster.” Rossi’s last published pieces appeared in 1628. It is possible that he died in the destruction of the Mantuan ghetto and the horrible plague outbreak that followed the sack of the city by Imperial troops in 1630.
Masks required
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