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This well-structured recital considers a well-represented idiom (the genesis of the Baroque style in northern Italy) from an unfamiliar standpoint. As Jamie Savan’s booklet note points out, Milan is not usually considered a centre of musical innovation in this period. As perhaps the only composer whose name will be generally familiar, Giovanni Paolo Cima gets a considerable airing, but most of the music comes from lesser-known figures: contrapuntal canzonas are nicely balanced by pieces in which a solo instrument ornaments the top line of a famous vocal piece (Lassus’s ‘Susanne un jour’, Rore’s ‘Ancor che co’l partire’). The voice itself gets in on the ‘diminutions’ game with a contrafact (newly texted version) of Palestrina’s ‘Io son ferito’. Scholarship and performance increasingly acknowledge the contribution to musical life of nuns as both composers and performers; they are represented here in both roles.
Soprano Faye Newton carries the recital with considerable guile and fluency, the standout performer here, well supported by the keyboard (somewhat unusually, the continuo selection has no archlute). The opening of Casati’s ‘Vulnerasti cor meum’, instantly recognisable as the concluding phrase of Caccini’s Amarilli mia bella (a shameless rip-off), carries the affective charge of both the original and the new text, and she is a persuasive advocate for the lesser-known music too (notably the two motets by Caterina Assandra). One could do with still more sprezzatura, that sense of nonchalant élan and rhythmic abandon in the face of technical difficulty; the same might be said of the ensemble numbers, which are not as incisive as they might be. That’s largely due to the lower lines lacking the technical chops of the others; the diminution pieces shine a cold light on the question. Somewhat uneven, then, but worthwhile discoveries nonetheless. |
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