Description
The words uttered by Musica in Mantua on 22 February 1607 in the prologue of Orfeo, favola in musica by Claudio Monteverdi, are the programmatic manifesto of moderna musica. In the five strophes written by Alessandro Striggio the Younger, Monteverdi affirms a new and revolutionary seconda pratica which was triggered by the experience in Florence in the last quarter of the preceding century and by the two versions of Euridice (one by Iacopo Peri, the other by Giulio Caccini) from 1600. The author describes the evocative power of two musical genres: secular (Cetera d’or – Golden Harp) embodied by the harpsichord, an instrument peculiar to chamber music, and sacred (Lira del Ciel – Heavenly Lyre) embodied by the organ, the symbol and voice of church music, united in a single seductive source. One tempts us toward the most authentic and extreme human affective states (sensuality and death, love and war), the other elevates our hearts towards celestial spiritual matters, evoked through the artifices of truth which characterize secular music.
This recording was created with the contribution of Graziella Alessi, Carlo Giovanni Ardissono, Enrico Bellei, Giovanni Luigi Benedetti, Graziella Borgatti, Lucia Casanova, Paolo Corsi, Paola Cialdella, Elide D’Atri, Angela Fodale, Laura Franco, Joana Fresu de Azevedo, Alessandra Gambrosier, Daniela Goldoni, Aimone Gronchi, Nicola Jappelli, Michela Livoni, Luigi Malabarba, Costantino Mastroprimiano, Raffaele Mautone, Marcello Mazzetti, Marcello Rossi Corradini, Cristina Menegazzi, Ezio Molinetti, Simone Nastasi, Stefania Oddone, Roberto Perfetti, Michela Piccoli, Stella Pinelli, Silvio Righini, Corrado Sgarbi, Caterina Soresina Stoppani, Giacomo Tinetti, Norma Maria Torti, Corrado Travaglini, Roman Turovsky-Sautscheck.
