hor ben venut'e' maggio may 2009

8/7/2019 Hor Ben Venut'e' Maggio May 2009

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Cantiam a gara: Hor benvenut MaggioLets sing in contest: Now we welcome the month of May!

From the Madrigal Hor benvenut Maggio

C O N S O R T I U M C A R I S S I M Isquisita musica strumentale ed eccellente musica vocale. Pompilio Totti Ritratto di Roma1638

Consortium Carissimi was founded in Rome in 1996 with the intent of uncovering and bringing to modernday ears the long forgotten Italian-Roman sacred and secular music of the 16th and especially the 17thcentury. Among the various types of music that flourished in Rome during the 17th century, the Oratories of GiacomoCarissimi are perhaps examples of the most outstanding form of composition of that time. Consortium Carissimiproudly takes on his name as a means for performance practice in both concerts and recordings, moving ahead in thearea of the manuscript transcription and the performances of his little known Motets and Cantatas.

Alongside the works of Carissimi, the ensemble also proposes music of his contemporaries, which was often mistakenas music of Carissimi either for the similar style or for its simple, fresh new approach to text, melody andaccompaniment. Dedicating much of the research and concert activity to composers like Graziani, Rossi, Pasquini,Agazzari and Sances, Consortium Carissimi assures not only extremely interesting Concert Programming, butprovides a clearer picture of the musical fermentation of the Early Roman Baroque.

This repertory, wrongly forgotten and heard very little today, even within musicological-performance circles, offersexamples of the high level of musical creativity of the time and certainly no less excellent than the European output ofthe 18th century. Of great importance is the performance of sacred and secular music transcribed from manuscript orearly print sources, which come from libraries located all over Europe. This work, which is done by its founderGarrick Comeaux, allows Consortium Carissimi to program World Premier Concerts and Recordings. The musicalstyle, the affects of the texts, the ornamentation and the choice of the figured bass instruments are objects of continuousresearch. It is however right within these parameters that Consortium Carissimi finds its reason for existence andfinds the vital energy necessary for the continuing research and performance practice.

The Italian Consortium Carissimi ensemble consists primarily of a small nucleus: three male vocal specialists, FabioFurnari, tenor; Marco Scavazza, baritone; yours truly as bass singer, and Vittorio Zanon, organ and musicaldirection; Pietro Prosser, theorbo; and Crisitiano Contadin, viola da gamba. This Italian ensemble truly helped buildthe solid foundation for introducing Consortium Carissi mi to North America.

Today you will hear yet a different formation of the stateside ensemble of Consortium Carissimi. Seventeen fine singersand exceptional instrumentalists, each adding particular colors of their own. Much of the early baroque repertory infact requires more mixed voices and additional instruments, as is in the case of this evenings concert. It is our hope topursue the performance of these larger works of this era with this fine stateside ensemble, as well as to continuemusical collaboration with our Italian friends.

C O N S O R T I U M C A R I S S I Msquisita musica strumentale ed eccellente musica vocale. Pompilio Totti

HOR BEN VENUT M

The Madrigals of Agostino Agazfor five, six, seven and eight voices and a little con

1600 & 1602


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SopraniKristi BerglandDiane Koschak

Marita LinkBeth Ree

Cynthia Prosek

Alti

Timoth FaatzJerry HinksLaura LentzBrian Link

Beth Nunnally

TenoriAndrew KaneTim Nelson

Steve Staruch

BassiGarrick Comeaux

Doug FreemanBen Henry-MorelandDaniel Nidzgorski

TiorbaPaul Berget

VioloneMark Kausch

Organo & Basso Continuo RealizationDon Livingston

Transcription, programming and musical preparationGarrick Comeaux

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A special thanks from the Board

And extraordinary gratitude to donors who have provided financial support during this season

Patricia and Mark Bauer

Garrick ComeauxElisabeth Comeaux

Steven and Judith Emmings

Edna Erickson

Milton Ferris and Denise Prosek

Bob Hickcox and Jackie Henry

Robert and Darlene Hays

Mark Kausch and Patricia G. Johnson

Tim and Kathy Nelson

Pat and Beth Nunnally

Cynthia Prosek

Larry E. Reynolds

Dale Talley

David and Connie Triplett

Consortium Carissimi

Board Members Robert Hickcox, President

Beth Nunnally, Treasurer

Cynthia Prosek, Secretary

Elisabeth ComeauxConsortium Carissimiis a501(c)(3) non-profit organization

P.O. Box 40553 Saint Paul, Minnesota 55104

Tel. 612.822.1376

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HOR BEN VENUT MA

FSatSu

Agostino Agazzari (2 December 1578 10 April 164

Hor benvenut' Maggio

O lungamente sospirato in vanoAura che sola segretaria sei

Fiume ch'a l'onde tue- Prima parte

Ahi tu mel nieghi- Seconda parte

Tornasti tu la vita- Prima parte

Se ben mi dai repulse- Seconda parte

Ch'io t'ami- Terza parte

Anch'io t'amo - Quarta & ultima parte

Hor benvenut' Maggio

Care lagrime mie

Movetevi a piet

Arte mi sia'l fuggire

Onde nasce il dolore- Prima parte

Perche non cangi voglia- Seconda parte

Neve non fuHor benvenut' Maggio

Ecco fra gigli


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Italian texts and translations

Hor benvenut Maggio

O lungamente sospirato

Aura, che sola segretaria sei

Hor benvenut Maggio

E a noi discopril seno

Della ridente e dolce primavera

Colmo di gioie e damoretti pieno

E a via pi chiaro raggioLieti gli fa menar vezzosi balli

Fiorir i prati e verdeggiar

Cantiam a gara

Hor benvenut Maggio!

And now we welcome the month of May

And it uncovers our breast

Of the laughing and sweet Spring

Overflowing with joy and full little loves

Along the way a clearer ray

Happy he beats out charming dances

Flowers the fields and makes green the valleys

Lets sing in contest

Now we welcome the month of May!

O lungamente sospirato invano

Avventuroso d se dopo tanti

Foschi giorni di piantiTu mi concedi Amor di veder hoggi

Ne beglocchi di lei

Girar sereno il sol deglocchi miei

O day long sighed for in vain

auspicious indeed if today

after all my dark days of weepingLove may let me see

in her bright eyes

my love looking on me with love again

Aura

Che sola segretaria sei del mio foco gentile

Deh quel caldo chognhor de miei sospir

A te soletta invio

Perchio chiami felici i miei martiriRaggira al volto di Sileno mio

Gentile breeze

You are only the carrier of my burning desire

Alas, the heat every hour of my sighing

To you I send alone

Because I call my torments happy

Deceives the face of my Sileno

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Giacomo Carissimi (1605 1674)

Giacomo or, rather, the name Jacomo is to be found written on the Marino, a small town in the southern hills ouside of Rome where Giborn and raised. Anything concerning his adolescent life or early mupurely speculative, since the first concrete information availablappointment as cantor at Tivoli from 1623 to 1627, later named orgaCarissimi went north to Assisi where he was appointed organisCathedral Church of San Ruffino from 1628 to 1629.

Don Bernardino Castoro, rector of the Collegio Germanico in Rom

come and take the place of Lorenzo Ratti as organist-choirmaster ofprestigious Basilica of SantApollinare. Carissimi continued to maintchurch music at Sant Apollinare and this soon came to the attentionJuly 18, 1656 that the Queen Cristina of Sweden, who resided iappointed Carissimi as her Maestro di cappella del Concerto da Camera.

In addition to his duties at the Collegio Germanico, Carissimi alsoprivately. Musicians such as J.K. Kerll (Vienna), Phillip Jacob BChristoph Bernhard, (Dresden); M.A. Charpentier (Paris) came composition with Carissimi. On November 29, 1643, Venice mourneMonteverdi and on December 5 the post as organist-choirmaJacomo(as he often signed his correspondence). He turned it Rovetta was soon later made successor. Carissimi was also offered to Archduke Leopold William in Brussels. This offer, too, he declined.

Germanico and SantApollinare where Jacomo remained activcomposer until his death on January 12, 1674. This college, to whichthis great patrimony of sacred music obtained a letter from Popprohibited under pain of excommunication, the removal or loaning from the College.

Today, unfortunately not one autograph manuscript is to be found in first attempt to seriously search for them was done by Pietro Alfpublished his findings in the Gazzetta musicale di Milano in 1851 and concluded that the suppression of the Society of Jesus caused an enorCollege, where the manuscripts were most likely sold as waste paper tat the Campo de fiori open market. The French occupation in Ropillaging of many archives which contained this sacred music. Alrunderscores the fact that those manuscripts which survive are due tdiligence of those who were students of Carissimi, and to those scholand collected music.


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Agazzari was fortunate to have had several books published: books of sacred music,madrigals and the pastoral drama Eumelio (1606). Stylistically, Eumelio is similar to thefamous composition by Cavalier Rappresentatione di Anima, e di Corpo of 1600, a work ofsingular significance in the development of the oratorio. In the preface to the drama hementions that he was asked to set the text to music only one month before theperformance; he composed the music in two weeks, and copied the parts and rehearsed itin the remaining two weeks. Keeping with this spirit, my transcriptions of these Madrigalshave arrived to our rehearsals with an uncanny similarity. These facsimiliI retrieved fromChrist ChurchUniversity of Oxford, (Mus. 502-7).

Agazzari, was perhaps not as great a composer as others of his time, but the timing of hispresence in the music scene ensured a great tradition of sacred and secular music insouthern Italy.

As we welcome Fiat to the United States, we take this occasion to welcome the Month ofMay to the Twin Cities. Happy Mothers day too! As the Concert title suggests, I have setthese Madrigals with a little continuo, ignoring entirely any polemics for authentic early musicperformance in deference to gran gusto. Buon appetito!

Garrick

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Fiume cha londe tue

Fiume cha londe tue

Fiume cha londe tue Ninfe e Pastori

Inviti con soave mormorio

Col cui consiglil suo ben crin viddio

Spesso Fillida mia cinger di fiori

Sa tuoi cristalli s glestivi ardori

Soventaccrebbi lagrimandun rio

Mostrami per piet lidolo mio

Nel tuo fugace argento ondio lhonori

Ahi tu mel nieghi io credea crudi i mari

I fiumi no ma tu da lo splendore

Chen te si specchia ad esser crudiimpari

Prodigo a te del pianto a lei del core

Fui lasso e sono e voi mi sete avari

Tu de la bella imago ella del core

Rivers, to y

Nymphs and

You invite with s

With which advice

Often my Fillida adorns

If your dew on th

Frequently increase

Show me mer

In your fleeting silve

Alas you deny me I believ

The rivers no, but you

Which in you is reflecte

I lavish on you tears,

I was and am weary and y

You of the beautiful


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Tornasti e la tua vista

Tornasti e la tua vista

Rec il suo cibal core

Chera dal gran digiun a lultimhore

Come lume gi spento

Che si ravviva al novo nutrimento

Se ben mi dai repulse

Per far della mia fe pi certe prove

Pur torn a te che non so gir altrove

Qual cagnolin fidato

Che torna suo signor che lha scacciato

Chio tami assai bel segno

Perch tu fuggi edio

Anche ti seguo con maggior desio

Non va dietra chi fugge

Chi nel foco damor non si distrugge

Anchio tamo

Ma segno tu damar mostri edio

Vo damor nascondendil bel desio

Ma so come chi fugge

E mentrhal foco in sen che lo distrugge

You returned and your sight

Found its food in the heart

Which was fasting til the last hour

As a light that was put out

Which is renewed by the new nutrition

Even if you give me rejections

In order to test my faithfulness

I still come back to you

since I dont know where else to turn

Which little trusting puppy

That returns to his master, that turned him out

That I love you is truly a great sign

Because you flee and IAlso follow you with even greater desire

Do not follow those that flee

Those in the fire of love are not destroyed

I too love you

But the sign of love you show and I

Want love, hiding the deep desire

But I know as those that flee

All the while the fire in the breast that destroys it

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These Performances

I first became acquainted with the music of Agostino Agazzari yearsbased ensemble LHomme Arm. We often sang concerts sponsoreTowns of Tuscany and Siena invited us to sing music of their best knEarly Baroque. Agazzari however did not stay in Siena but moved tomaestro di cappellaat the German College in Rome in 160203 and the1606. As you will remember, the German College was famous in Rom

it is no surprise that our Carissimi took the post in December of 1629

Agazzari had a somewhat tortured career, spent in both his home toseemed unable to stay in any position for an extended period of timeterms as organist at Siena cathedral, the longest for barely six years, amonths. Only in the last year of his life did he finally rise to the cappella. He died in Siena.

Agazzari was born to an aristocratic family. Siena, despite its importa(also famous for the Paliohorse race in the Citys centre Piazza) never cities with the most important musical cultures of the Renaissanperiods. For the first time, the city possessed a cathedral witestablishment and one notable composer, whose works by the wayignored.

For musicologists, Agazzari has been primarily considered as the auearly treatise on the practice of basso continuo. This treatise was imthe diffusion of the technique throughout Europe: for example, Milarge portions of it in his Syntagma musicum in Germany in 1618-16many late Renaissance and early Baroque theoretical treatises, it descrwas already occurring. In large part it was based on a study of his fconcerti ecclesiastici (published in Venice in 1602), the first collection othe basso continuo.

He was also a fairly prolific composer of sacred music: motets, massefor one to eight voices, with or without instrumental accompanimentaccompanied by basso continuo, with organ providing the sustaining lthe other hand, are a cappella, in the late Renaissance style, so Agshowed extreme progressive tendencies as well as some more conseprogressive music was sacred, and his conservative was secular, a sitamong composers of the early Baroque.


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Neve non fu

Ecco fra gigli

Neve non fu ma foco

Chal sen lanciasti per coprirmi il core

Giulia gentil con gioco

Ma strinsal gel lardore

Del suo bel foco amore

Hor se piaghi col gelo

Che faran glocchi ondinnamoril cielo

Snow it was not but fire

Which you hurled to cover my heart

Giulia kindly playing

But tightened to ice the heat

Of her beautiful fire of love

Now if you wound with ice

What will the eyes do

as you make the sky fall in love

Ecco fra giglie candide viole

De la sperardentissima del sole

La desiata luceLa desiata aurora

Ecco la bella flora ecco la bella flora

ecco chadduce

Nova schiera di fiori

E tu vezzosa Clori ancor non senti i nostri

lieti balli e nostri accenti

Deh sorgi sorghomai vedi i pastori,

Mira questhonorata compagnia,

Deh sorgi anima mia

Cos dicea Damon mentre dintorno

Belle ninfe facean lieto soggiorno

Here amid lilies and snow-white violets

Beneath the heat of the Sun

The desired lightThe desired daybreak

There the beautiful Flora

there it brings forth a new array of flowers

And you, charming Clori

still do not feel our happy

dances and accents

Alas, arise, arise now and see the shepherds,

Look upon this honored company

Alas, arise my soul

This, said Damon, while around him,

beautiful fairies passed happy days

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Care lagrime mie

Movetevi a piet

Care lagrime mie

Messi dolenti di mie penerie

Poi che voi non potete

Far mollahime quel core

Che non have piet del mio dolore

Almen, almen per cortesia

Ammorzate lascesa fiamma mia

O pur crescete tanto

Chio mi sommerga nel mio stesso pianto

My dear

Painful messenger

Since you ca

Soften tha

Which has no p

At least, plea

Put out the growing

Or rather gro

That I drown in

Movetevi a piet del mio tormento

E dove il pianto el sospirar non giunge

Deh portate voi lunge

Portataure benigne il mio lamento

Lasso chio prego al vento e non mavveggio

Morendahim chal vento aita chieggio

Be moved to pity

And where the crying and

Alas, take f

and bring soft win

Alas, that I pray to the w

Dying alas I ask t


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Arte mi sial fuggire

Arte mi sial fuggire

Quellingrata e amore

Che lun mabbruggial sen laltrardil core

Ma sio fuggo che sia

Sio tardo

Moro sio resto e lungahime tuttardo

Che deggio far su cor meglio morire

Amando che partire

Cor generose quando

Damor soffro le fiamme mor amando

Art is my way to flee

That ungrateful and love

That one scorches the breast

and the other burns the heart

But if I flee then what

If I am slow

I die if I stay alas and consume myself

What should I do O heart it is best to die

Loving that departs

A generous heart is when

Of love you suffer the flames and die loving

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Onde nasce il dolore

Onde nasce il dolore

Chognhor taffliggil core

Daglassalti damor e di fortuna

Che lun mabbruggia e laltro legnaduna

Comaccendonil foco

Per cui non trovi loco

Fortuna lidol mio masconde fura

Amor del suo voler non massicura

Perche non cangi voglia

E prendun che taccoglia

Vo piutosto morir mesta per lui

Che viver fortunata per altrui

Ben mertesser tua fede

Dogni gran benerede

Vivr dunque fedelal mio signore

Premio aspettandal mio leale amore

Where pai

Every hour that y

From the attacks of

That one burns and the o

As they igni

thus you fin

Fortune, my idol, hide

Love, love and his desi

Why not chang

And take one tha

I would rather d

That lives in fort

Well deserving

Of every great

I will therefore live f

The prize awaiting m

hor ben venut'e' maggio may 2009

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