Vecchi: L'amfiparnaso

San Petronio Cmo:Vartolo

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Cat No: 8553312

Release Date: 01 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099431224

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Vecchi

Description
Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605) L'Amfiparnaso (Madrigal Comedy) Orazio Vecchi spent much of his career in his native Modena, while enjoying a much wider reputation, notably as a composer of secular music. Of this his madrigal comedy L'Amfiparnaso remains the best known example. Vecchi's early education was under the Benedictines of San Pietro in Modena and he was ordained priest, serving from 1581 as maestro di cappella at the cathedral of Salo and from 1584 at Modena Cathedral. Two years later he assumed a similar but better rewarded position at Reggio Emilia and then as a canon at Correggio Cathedral. He returned to his former position at Modena in 1593 and by 1598 had been appointed maestro di corte to Duke Cesare d'Este. A later invitation to serve as maestro di corte to the Emperor Rudolph II was refused on the grounds of ill-health and Vecchi died in Modena in 1605, at a time when he was enjoying some material success. Vecchi was associated at various times with other leading composers of the time. In 1579 he contributed to a celebratory collection, Trionfo di Musica, for the marriage of the Grand Duke Francesco, with Merulo and Andrea Gabrieli, and published the first of his own sets of Canzonette in 1580. His madrigal-comedy L'Amfiparnaso was first performed in 1594 and published in 1597. The text was the work of the Bologna poet Giulio Cesare Croce and is presented in a series of madrigal scenes. These offer a narrative that involves characters from the commedia dell'arte, the old man Pantalone, the ridiculous bumbling Doctor Graziano from Bologna, the bragging spaniard Capitan Cardone, the courtesan Hortensia, the comic servants, the chorus of Jews, and the more serious characters of the young lovers Lucio and Isabella, shepherd and shepherdess. The twin peaks of Mount Pamassus signified in the title are those of music and comic poetry, the first in a technically accomplished polyphonic style more naturally associated with relatively serious subjects and the latter in a style derived from the poet Francesco Berni, in contrast to the pure and elevated style of Petrarch. The madrigals that make up the juxtaposed scenes in a structure that leaves dramatic coherence to the listener are scored for five voices, with the exception of Doctor Graziano' s four-part serenade, a parody of a madrigal by Cipriano da Rore. Within the five-voice texture a contrasting group of three voices is used. The result is distinct from anything like opera, in which there was contemporary experiment. L'Amfiparnaso is for the listener rather than the spectator. Each of the scenes is preceded by a three-line summary of the narrative. The Prologue urges the audience to listen rather than look and to imagine in the mind the events to be related. In the first scene Pantalone calls for his servant Pedrolino, who mocks his master's wooing. He tells Pantalone that Hortensia will have none of him, a conclusion Pantalone has confirmed when he calls up to her from the street only
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