Dangerous Graces:
Female musicians at North Italian courts
Music
Cipriano de Rore, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Ciaches de Wert, Lodovico Agostini, Marcantonio Ingegneri, Paolo Virchi, Vincenzo Galilei
Performing forces
3/4 Singers, harpsichord, lute/chitarrone, viola da gamba and harp
Reader
Description
Based around the group's award-winning CD of the same title, this programme is the result of our Arts and Humanities Research Board funded project, exploring the repertoire that might have been sung by the legendary groups of "singing ladies" or concerto di dame that were the singing sensation of late sixteenth-century Ferarra and beyond.
Head hunted and hired to perform as part of Duke Alfonso II's private musical gatherings (the original musica secreta), the Ferarrese singers, possibly the first ever professionally performing women, were lauded to the skies for the beauty of their voices, the brilliance and ingenuity of the decorations and graces they added to the music they sang, and for their wit and intelligence.
Although mostly not from aristocratic families, they were socially elevated via arranged marriages and enjoyed many of the priviledges of court - so long as they behaved themselves, or at least so long as the Duke, their protector, remained alive. But it was a dangerous life and a knife-edged existence!
Dangerous Graces traces the stories of several of these women, with tales of intrigue, jealousy, passionate love, heartache, vengeance and even murder.
The music is arranged from the contemporary Italian madrigal repertoire associated with Ferarra, according to performance practices researched by the group. This includes the adding of instruments to the lower lines and the ornamentation of the vocal lines to make solo songs, duets and trios out of the polyphonic madrigals of composers including Cipriano de Rore, Giaches de Wert and Luzzasco Luzzaschi.
The group was awarded a Diapason Découverte for their recording of this music in recognition of the important role they have played in revealing the greater possibilities of performance practice that exist within printed scores.
Listen to music
Giaches de Wert: Questi odorati fiori
Giaches de Wert: Non è sì denso velo
Giaches de Wert: Tirsi morir volea
Cipriano de Rore: O sonno, o della queta humida ombrosa