Angeli, Zingare e Pastori
Allegories in Italian Renaissance Music
The Royal Wind Music will present a new concert programme on March 28, 2010 at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Angeli, Zingare e Pastori includes a selection of musical works from Venice, Naples, Milan, Bologna and Rome, five major centres of musical production in the 16th and 17th centuries. Motets, madrigals and ingenious instrumental music by masters such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Andrea Gabrieli are combined with compositions by less well-known composers like Alessandro Orologio or Ruggiero Giovanelli. The music is cheerful, elegant and full of spectacular virtuosity.
Music by Frescobaldi, Gabrieli, Palestrina, Rossi, Trabaci and others.
Del Canto Figurado
Spanish music from the 16th and 17th centuries
The music from the Iberian peninsula was so popular during the 16th & 17th century, that it was copied and performed in Italy, France, Germany, The Netherlands, England and even America. While not the only place, the Court in Madrid was the focal point of musical activity. The capilla real included 30 or 40 men who sang, composed or played keyboard instruments, the harp, the violin (viola da gamba), the violin, and various wind instruments. It provided music for all religious and secular occasions at court. When the Emperor Charles came to Spain for the first time in 1517 he was accompanied by his own musical chapel, consisting of Flemish singers who dealt with the grand song masses and other private services. The Flemish were appointed to the sacred music and the Spanish were responsible for the instrumental one. Outside Madrid elaborate capillas were to be found in cathedrals and monasteries in such places as Valladolid, Segovia, Burgos, Palencia, El Escorial, Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla.
Music by Cabezón, Guerrero, Morales, Desprez and others.
The Flute-Heaven of the Gods
Polyphonic settings of popular tunes present in the repertoire of Dutch 17th century recorder collections
The variations by the blind Dutch recorder player and carillonneur Jacob van Eyck (c1590-1657), printed at a time when the paint of Rembrandt's The Nightwatch was barely dry, represent the largest collection of music for a solo instrument in Western history. This program can be considered a blueprint of 17th century compositional practice: one of the most popular occupations for a musician during the 17th century was to create a new 'version' to a given melody. This could be achieved in different ways; by writing counterparts and thus adding polyphony, or by creating a new text to an existing melody thus creating a so-called contrafact. The pieces that have been based on an existing or newly composed melody can be identified as settings of psalms, songs and dance tunes. These tunes cover an important part of the immensely large repertory of melodies current in Dutch song and dance collections during the I7th century.
Music by Sweelinck, Dowland, Brade, Scheidt, J.S. Bach and others.
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The Royal Wind Music
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