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Thursday 13 October 2011 7.30pm
Union Chapel
Les Arts Florissants
Monteverdi madrigals
Denis Rouvre
Les Arts Florissants
Paul Agnew director/tenor
Miriam Allan soprano
Hannah Morrison soprano
Marie Gautrot mezzo-soprano
Sean Clayton tenor
Lisandro Abadie bass
This concert is part of a complete cycle of Monteverdi madrigals
being performed by Les Arts Florissants and Paul Agnew
throughout Europe between 2011 and 2014.
tonight’s programme
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
Sacrae cantiunculae tribus vocibus (1582)
Lapidabant Stephanum
Orazio Vecchi (1550–1605)
First Book of Madrigals, for six voices (1583)
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo; Ardi o gela a tua voglia
Claudio Monteverdi
First Book of Canzonette, for three voices (1584)
Canzonette d’amore; Quando sperai;
Raggi dov’è il mio bene
Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (1535/6–92)
Fifth Book of Madrigals, for five voices (1587)
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo; Ardi o gela a tua voglia
Luca Marenzio (1553/4–99)
Fourth Book of Madrigals, for five voices (1584)
A che tormi il ben mio; Questa ordì il laccio
Claudio Monteverdi
First Book of Madrigals, for five voices (1587)
17 Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo; 18 Ardi o gela a tua
voglia; 19 Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia
Claudio Monteverdi
First Book of Madrigals, for five voices (1587)
1 Ch’ami la vita mia nel tuo bel nome
2 Se per avervi, ohimè, donato il core
3 A che tormi il ben mio
4 Amor, per tua mercé vattene a quella
5 Baci soavi e cari
6 Se pur non mi consenti
7 Filli cara ed amata
8 Poiché del mio dolore
9a Fumia la pastorella (Part 1)
9b Almo divino raggio (Part 2)
9c Allora i pastor tutti (Part 3)
10 Se nel partir da voi
11 Tra mille fiamme e tra mille catene
12 Usciam, ninfe, omai fuor di questi boschi
13 Questa ordì il laccio
14 La vaga pastorella
15 Amor s’il tuo ferire
16 Donna s’io miro voi, giaccio divengo
17 Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
18 Ardi o gela a tua voglia (risposta)
19 Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia (contra risposta)
Interval: 20 minutes
Les Arts Florissants receive financial support from the Ministry of
Culture and Communication, the City of Caen and the Région
Basse-Normandie. They are artists in residence at the théâtre de
Caen. Imerys is the Principal Sponsor of Les Arts Florissants.
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programme note
Acraze sweeping the nation
The rise of the madrigal in 16th-century Italy
Critical thinking and curious contradictions collided and
ultimately cohabited in the so-called New Learning of
Europe’s Renaissance. Scholars in the rich city states and
powerful principalities of Italy gradually refashioned the
image of a world centred on God to place man at the
picture’s heart. Many early ‘humanists’, however, were
clergymen, with popes, cardinals and bishops prominent
among them. They set aside formerly sacrosanct medieval
texts to consult works by ancient Greek and classical
authors, studied biblical sources in their early Hebrew
and Greek forms, and reintroduced reason and scientific
method to the debate about life’s meaning. The humanist
movement radiated from Italy to reach university towns from
Oxford and Cambridge to Cracow and Lwów. It thrived by
reconciling individual expression and personal freedom,
ideas rooted in pagan thought, with the godly nature and
teachings of Christ.
Gerhard Gerhards, best known by his Latin and Greek pennames ‘Desiderius’ and ‘Erasmus’, oversaw the synthesis of
paganism and Christianity through a series of bestselling
books, complete with exhortations to young aristocratic
readers to develop their artistic and physical talents to the
full. Secular music, its creation and performance, became
a hallmark of a refined humanist education. Baldassare
Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, published in Venice
in 1528 and translated for English readers in 1561, underlines
the high value attached by the ideal courtier to solo singing
with instrumental accompaniment. Performing vocal
ensemble music from manuscript or printed parts was
also considered a desirable courtly skill, one fed by the
emergence in the 1520s of a new genre of secular partsong.
The Italian madrigal apparently developed in tune with
contemporary thinking on power politics, by which members
of ruling elites clearly divided public from private life,
exterior demeanour from interior emotion. The madrigal
genre, observes the musicologist Susan McClary, ‘revels in
the simulation of complex inner feelings’. In its mature form,
it allowed highly educated oligarchs to savour subjective
feelings which they habitually masked with Castiglione’s
conventions of concealment and studied sprezzatura
(‘nonchalance’).
McClary’s interpretation, while ripe for debate, supplies
a partial explanation for the rapid rise of avant-garde
trends in madrigalian verse and music during the mid-1500s
and beyond. Those trends were also propelled by the
coincidence of outstanding composers, Italy’s burgeoning
music publishing industry and the growth of potentially
lucrative markets for settings of poetry in the local
vernacular. Stylistic flexibility and formal malleability
3
programme note
certainly allowed the art of the madrigal to flourish and
become what has been called ‘the inevitable proving
ground for any composer’ of the 16th century’s second half.
Madrigal, a venerable musico-poetic term from the 14th
century, was revived and applied by publishers in the 1530s
to stand as the generic name for their freshly minted
anthologies of secular vocal polyphony. The madrigal had
superior literary foundations, set for Italian verse in the
1300s, above all by Petrarch, and refashioned in the early
1500s by the aristocratic scholar and churchman Pietro
Bembo. Its emergence, propagated in Florence and
accelerated thereafter by inventive itinerant musicians
from north of the Alps, snagged the interest of Italy’s
ruling dynasties, not least the Este family in Ferrara and
the Gonzagas in Mantua.
The madrigal craze played out to an audience of highly
educated courtly cognoscenti, listeners steeped in the
sophisticated language of arcane poetic and musical
allusion. The Ferrarese and Mantuan courts avidly followed
the avant-garde elaborations applied by their resident
composers and poets to the madrigal: the dukes of Ferrara
and Mantua, recalled Vincenzo Giustiniani in 1628, ‘took the
greatest delight’ in vocal polyphony, ‘especially in gathering
4
many gentlewomen and gentlemen to play and sing
excellently. So great was their delight that they lingered
sometimes for whole days in some little chambers they
had ornately outfitted with pictures and tapestries for this
sole purpose.’
Marc’Antonio Ingegneri’s career unfolded at a distance
from Este extravagance and Gonzagan grandeur. Born in
Verona in 1535 (or perhaps 1536), the son of a goldsmith, he
made his home 70 miles to the west in Cremona and served
there as maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of Santa
Maria Assunta from around 1580 until his death in 1592.
Ingegneri is best known to music history as the young
Monteverdi’s tutor; the composer’s reputation, however,
has been enhanced in recent years, thanks to the ongoing
publication of a critical edition of his complete works,
related archival studies and the keen interest of performers.
Madrigals, their creation and publication, dominated
Ingegneri’s output from 1576 to 1586, during his time as a
member of the Cremonese Accademia degli Animosi, a
musico-literary society founded under the patronage of
Bishop Sfondrati. His setting of Giovanni Battista Guarini’s
‘Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo’, a favourite text with madrigalists,
underlines the composer’s flair for intensifying poetry
through music. It was created together with an eloquent
programme note
setting of Torqauto Tasso’s ‘Ardi o gela a tua voglia’, a
so-called risposta or reply made ‘in the name of a lady’ to
the proposta or proposal stated in Guarini’s text.
He set impressively high standards with the publication of his
first madrigal collection, which offered pride of place to
refined settings of Petrarch’s immortal verse.
Ingegneri’s ‘Ardo, sì, ma non t'amo’ was first published in
Munich in 1585 as part of Giulio Gigli da Immola’s Sdegnosi
ardori, in part an anthology of 31 settings of the same verse.
The composer subsequently included the piece together
with its Tasso risposta in his Fifth Book of Madrigals for five
voices, published in Venice in 1587 with a dedication to
members of the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona. It has
been suggested that Ingegneri’s paired settings may have
been used as teaching models, a case backed up by the
evidence of Monteverdi’s near-contemporary settings of the
same texts from the close of his First Book of Madrigals for
five voices of 1587.
‘A che tormi il ben mio’, published in 1584 as the final piece
in his Fourth Book of Madrigals for five voices, reveals
Marenzio’s mastery of declamatory writing and delight in
sensuous contrasts of vocal textures and timbre. The piece
offered a bold stylistic model for Monteverdi to follow in his
setting of the same text, which he included in his First Book.
Monteverdi, however, favoured a darker emotional tone
than that projected by Marenzio’s sprightly melodies and
bright harmonic language. Striking points of comparison
and contrast also surface in the settings by Marenzio and
Monteverdi of the elder Giovan Battista Strozzi’s ‘Questa
ordì il laccio’. Marenzio’s characteristic playfulness runs its
course to illustrate the lover snared by beauty before giving
way to a vibrant aural depiction of vengeance.
Denis Arnold hit the bull’s-eye with his description of Luca
Marenzio as ‘the Schubert of the madrigal’. The composer’s
dazzling invention responded to the hothouse creative
atmosphere encouraged by such patrons as the cardinals
Luigi d’Este and Ferdinando de Medici and members of the
Orsini and Gonzaga families. Between 1580 and the
following decade’s close, the Rome-based north Italian
musician saw a dozen madrigal books through the press.
The Italian scholar Nino Pirrotta, in an article about
Monteverdi’s poetic choices, noted how the young
composer ‘moved in cultural circles that were anything but
cosmopolitan’. Marenzio’s ‘Ardo, sì’, ‘Questa ordì il laccio’
and ‘A che tormi il ben mio’, he notes, offered verse settings
by a ‘star’ of his age; otherwise, ‘the composers from whom
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programme note
[the young] Monteverdi could obtain his texts all belonged to
the Lombardo–Veneto circle centred around Brescia and
Verona’. Orazio Vecchi, born in Modena in 1550, spent time
in Brescia and held strong connections with Verona. Best
known for his madrigal comedy L’Amfiparnaso, Vecchi
published two books of madrigals. His First Book of 1583
contains the first known paired settings of Guarini’s ‘Ardo, sì’
and Tasso’s ‘Ardi o gela a tua voglia’. Vecchi’s writing for six
voice parts generates great energy and textural variety in
both works. Their popularity helped drive demand for the
composer’s First Book of Madrigals, which was reprinted in
1588 and 1591; Vecchi’s ‘Ardo, sì’ also appeared in his
Piu e diversi madrigali e canzonette of 1594.
The madrigal evolved in harness with related forms of
secular vocal music, as the title of Vecchi’s 1594 publication
suggests. The canzonetta, a short, dance-like piece for
voices, emerged in the late 1560s bearing hybrid
characteristics of the villanella, a popular Neapolitan
dialect song for three voices, and the weightier madrigal.
The Venetian publishers Giacomo Vincenzi and Ricciardo
Amadino issued Monteverdi’s ‘first’ book of Canzonette
a tre voci in 1584, their choice of title suggesting that other
volumes would surely follow. In fact, the strikingly prolific
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young composer turned away from the genre to concentrate
on the madrigal proper. ‘Canzonette d’amore’, ‘Quando
sperai’ and ‘Raggi dov’è il mio bene’ amount to typically
buoyant yet cultivated, courtly expressions of popular song.
Monteverdi drew the texts for the first and last of these pieces
from Vecchi’s Canzonette collection of 1581.
Compositional ideas and practices associated with the
madrigal gradually seeped into the repertoire of sacred
motets. Monteverdi was only 15 years old when his Sacrae
cantiunculae was issued in Venice in 1582. The young
musician clearly invested early lessons learnt from Ingegneri
into his youthful collection of motets for three voices.
‘Lapidabant Stephanum’, while generally conservative in its
counterpoint, includes a striking change of mode for the
setting of the words ‘Domine Jesu’, more in keeping with the
secular madrigal than music conceived for church use.
Monteverdi’s willingness to challenge the compositional rule
books for the sake of expressive affect was confirmed in
1587 with the publication of his First Book of Madrigals. The
confidence of the composer’s writing, his mature response
to rich poetic imagery and the intricate conception of his
harmonic language belie the work of a 19-year-old: in many
respects, Monteverdi’s first madrigal collection, 21 pieces
programme note
grouped into two stylistically distinct sections, amounts to
nothing less than a masterwork of the genre’s late maturity.
In dedicating the anthology to Count Marco Verità, a
prominent patron of the arts in Verona, the composer
appears to have been angling to hook a job beyond his
native Cremona. His madrigals were, he wrote, ‘youthful
compositions’, in want of ‘no other praise than that which is
usually given to the flowers of spring, compared with that
given to the fruits of summer and autumn’.
Monteverdi furnished his ear-catching work with artifice
and artistry, displaying both prominently in the book’s
opener, ‘Ch’ami la vita mia’ (That I love my life). The
madrigal’s verse can also be heard as an ardent admission
to a fair lady. Monteverdi clearly delights in the text’s
opposition of life and death, brilliantly marshalling the
textural combinations of five voice parts to underline and
complement poetic contrasts. Erotic love surges through
Guarini’s ‘Baci soavi e cari’ (Sweet and tender kisses) to
impel the composer’s yearning treatment, complete with its
suppressed post-coital conclusion, of the poet’s love–death
allegory. Monteverdi’s madrigal book, with its amorous and
impassioned texts, would no doubt be marketed today
under the title ‘All about Love’.
No. 14, ‘La vaga pastorella’ (The pretty shepherdess), one of
the collection’s finest treasures, presented Monteverdi with
ample scope for musical invention and expressive freedom.
The composer initially sets course to depict frolicking
shepherdesses before breaking the carefree mood with a
heartfelt meditation on ‘e carco di martiro’ (‘and laden
down with suffering’). The book’s closing sequence,
comprising Guarini’s proposta (‘Ardo, sì’) and Tasso’s
risposta (‘Ardi o gela’) and contra risposta (‘Arsi ed alsi a
mia voglia’), points towards Monteverdi’s later and greater
achievements as a madrigalist. His colourful triptych,
presented this evening both as a distinct group and within its
published context, invites listeners to contemplate the many
twists and turns of love. The composer neatly underpins
Tasso’s imitation or parody of Guarini’s verse with formal
correspondences between each piece. Monteverdi also
echoes music from the book’s first madrigal in the bass line
of ‘Ardi o gela’ and reinforces the concluding sense of unity
by using broadly similar material to close each of his three
final pieces.
Programme note © Andrew Stewart
For texts please see page 8.
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text
Claudio Monteverdi
Lapidabant Stephanum
Lapidabant Stephanum invocantem et dicentem
Domine Jesu accipe spiritum meum
et ne statuas illis hoc peccatum
et cum hoc dixisset obdormivit in Domino.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed,
‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit
and do not hold this sin against them.’
And when he had said this, he fell asleep in the Lord.
Acts of the Apostles 7:58–59
Orazio Vecchi
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Perfid’e dispietata,
Indegnamente amata
Da un sì leal amante
Ah, non fia più che del mio amor ti vante,
Perch’ho già sano il core:
Et s’ardo, ardo di sdegn’e non d’amore.
I burn, yes, but love you not
I burn, yes, but love you not,
faithless, merciless girl,
unworthy of the love
of such a constant lover.
Ah, flatter yourself no longer with my love,
for now my heart is tranquil:
and if I burn, it is with anger and not with love.
Giovanni Battista Guarini
Ardi o gela a tua voglia
Ardi o gela a tua voglia,
Perfid’ed impudico,
Or amante, or nemico.
Ché d’incostante ingegno
Poco i’ stimo l’amor e men lo sdegno:
E se l’amor fu vano,
Van fia lo sdegno del tuo cor insano.
Torquato Tasso
8
Burn or freeze, as you wish
Burn or freeze, as you wish,
faithless, shameless man,
one moment my lover, the next my enemy.
For I have little regard for the love
of an inconstant man and even less for his anger
and if you loved in vain,
vain too is the anger of your intemperate heart.
text
Claudio Monteverdi
Canzonette d’amore
Canzonette d’amore
Che m’uscite del cuore,
Contate i miei dolori
Le man baciando alla mia bella Clori.
Songs of love
Songs of love
stemming from my heart,
tell of my sorrows
as you kiss the hand of my fair Chloris.
Ivi liete e vezzose,
Coronate di rose,
Contate i miei dolori
Le man baciando alla mia bella Clori.
Go happy and graceful,
crowned with roses,
telling of my sorrows
as you kiss the hand of my fair Chloris.
Poi mirando il bel seno
E ’l suo viso sereno,
Contate i miei dolori
In sen vivendo alla mia bella Clori.
Then, as you gaze upon her fair bosom
and her serene face,
tell of my sorrows
as you dwell in the heart of my fair Chloris.
Quando sperai
Quando sperai del mio servir mercede
E ’l guidardon de la mia pura fede,
Altri il mio ben m’ha tolto
E ’l frutt’ohimé de mie fatiche ha colto.
When I hoped
When I hoped for reward for my service
and recompense for my pure faith,
others stole my beloved away from me
and took the fruit, alas, of my labours.
Speravo ahi lasso posseder mia diva,
Altri hor di speme, e del mio ben mi priva,
Baciando il caro volto,
E ’l frutto ohimé di mie fatiche ha colto.
I hoped, ah weary, to possess my goddess,
but others deprived me of my hope and my beloved,
kissing her dear face,
and took the fruit, alas, of my labours.
Credevo pur in fin di tante pene
Godere il caro mio bramato bene,
Hor altri me l’ha tolto
E ’l frutto ohimé di mie fatiche ha colto.
I trusted, after such suffering
that I might enjoy my beloved, so desired,
but others stole her away from me
and took the fruit, alas, of my labours.
Così per sé far l’ape ogn’anno crede
Misera il mele, e mai non lo possiede
Che altri le fura e toglie
Il dolce frutto e le sue care spoglie.
Thus the bee believes each year, poor wretch,
that it is making honey for itself, yet it never has any,
for another steals it and takes away
the sweet fruit and its much-loved spoils.
Please turn page quietly
9
text
Raggi dov’è il mio bene
Raggi dov’è il mio bene
Non mi date più pene
Ch’io me n’andrò cantando dolce aita
Questi son gl’occhi che mi dan la vita.
Rays in which my love dwells
Rays in which my love dwells
cause me no more pain
then shall I go singing of your sweet aid:
‘These are the eyes that give me life’.
Soli del vostro foco
Non m’ardete per gioco,
Ch’io me n’andrò cantando à tutte l’hore
Questi son gl’occhi dove alberga Amore.
Suns, burn me not
for sport with your flames,
then shall I go singing always:
‘These are the eyes that harbour love’.
Lumi vivaci alteri
Non mi siate sì feri
Ch’io me n’andrò cantando ad hora ad hora
Questi son gli’occhi donde il ciel s’indora.
Proud lively eyes
are not so savage to me
that I go singing always
that these are the eyes where heaven is golden.
Marc’Antonio Ingegneri
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Perfid’e dispietata,
Indegnamente amata
Da un sì leal amante
Ah, non fia più che del mio amor ti vante,
Perch’ho già sano il core:
Et s’ardo, ardo di sdegn’e non d’amore.
I burn, yes, but love you not
I burn, yes, but love you not,
faithless, merciless girl,
unworthy of the love
of such a constant lover.
Ah, flatter yourself no longer with my love,
for now my heart is tranquil:
and if I burn, it is with anger and not with love.
Giovanni Battista Guarini
Ardi o gela a tua voglia
Ardi o gela a tua voglia,
Perfid’ed impudico,
Or amante, or nemico.
Ché d’incostante ingegno
Poco i’ stimo l’amor e men lo sdegno:
E se l’amor fu vano,
Van fia lo sdegno del tuo cor insano.
Torquato Tasso
10
Burn or freeze, as you wish
Burn or freeze, as you wish,
faithless, shameless man,
one moment my lover, the next my enemy.
For I have little regard for the love
of an inconstant man and even less for his anger
and if you loved in vain,
vain too is the anger of your intemperate heart.
text
Luca Marenzio
A che tormi il ben mio
A che torm'il ben mio
S’io dico di morire?
Questo, madonna, è troppo gran martire.
Ahi vita, ahi mio tesoro,
E perderò il ben mio con dir ch’io moro?
Why deprive me of my love
Why deprive me of my love
if I speak of death?
This pain is too great, my lady.
Alas, life, alas, my treasure,
shall I lose my love by saying I am dying?
Anonymous
Questa ordì il laccio
Questa ordì il laccio, questa
Sì bella man tra fiori e l’erba il tese,
E questa il cor mi prese e fu sì presta
A trarlo in mezz’a mille fiamme accese.
Hor che l’hò qui ristretta
Vendetta, Amor, vendetta!
This hand set the snare
This hand set the snare, this
loveliest of hands laid it midst flowers and grass,
and this hand took my heart and placed it
with such haste amid a thousand burning flames.
Now that I hold it captive here,
vengeance, Love, vengeance!
Giovan Battista Strozzi
Giovan Battista Strozzi
Claudio Monteverdi
First Book of Madrigals
17 Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Perfid’e dispietata,
Indegnamente amata
Da un sì leal amante
Ah, non fia più che del mio amor ti vante,
Perch’ho già sano il core:
Et s’ardo, ardo di sdegn’e non d’amore.
I burn, yes, but love you not
I burn, yes, but love you not,
faithless, merciless girl,
unworthy of the love
of such a constant lover.
Ah, flatter yourself no longer with my love,
for now my heart is tranquil:
and if I burn, it is with anger and not with love.
Giovanni Battista Guarini
Please turn page quietly
11
text
18 Ardi o gela a tua voglia
Ardi o gela a tua voglia,
Perfid’ed impudico,
Or amante, or nemico.
Ché d’incostante ingegno
Poco i’ stimo l’amor e men lo sdegno:
E se l’amor fu vano,
Van fia lo sdegno del tuo cor insano.
Burn or freeze, as you wish
Burn or freeze, as you wish,
faithless, shameless man,
one moment my lover, the next my enemy.
For I have little regard for the love
of an inconstant man and even less for his anger
and if you loved in vain,
vain too is the anger of your intemperate heart.
Torquato Tasso
19 Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia
Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia
Leal non impudico,
Amante non nemico;
E s’al tuo lieve ingegno
Poco cale l’amor e men lo sdegno,
Sdegn’e amor farà vano
L’altiero suon del tuo parlar insano.
Torquato Tasso
Interval: 20 minutes
12
I burned and froze, as I wished
I burned and froze, as I wished,
faithful not shameless,
a lover not an enemy;
and if to a frivolous girl
love matters little and anger even less,
both anger and love will be rendered vain
by your proud and intemperate words.
text
Claudio Monteverdi
First Book of Madrigals
1 Ch’ami la vita mia nel tuo bel nome
Ch’ami la vita mia nel tuo bel nome
Par che si legg’ognora,
Ma tu voi pur ch’io mora.
Se ’l ver porti in te scritto,
Acqueta coi begl’occhi il cor afflitto,
Acciò letto non sia
Ch’ami la morte e non la vita mia.
That I love my life
That I love my life in your fair name
it seems it may always be read,
yet you would have me die.
If within you the truth be written,
calm with your fair eyes the stricken heart,
so that it be not read
that I love death and not my life.
Anonymous
2 Se per avervi, ohimè, donato il core
Se per avervi, ohimè, donato il core,
Nasce in me quell’ardore,
Donna crudel, che m’ard’in ogni loco,
Tal che son tutto foco,
E se per amar voi l’aspro martire
Mi fa di duol morire,
Miser, che far debb’io
Privo di voi che sete ogni ben mio?
If, alas, because I gave you my heart
If, alas, because I gave you my heart
I am filled with such ardour,
cruel lady, that it burns me throughout,
making me naught but fire,
and if, because I love you, bitter pain
makes me die of suffering,
what, poor wretch, should I do
without you, who are all to me?
Anonymous
3 A che tormi il ben mio
A che tormi il ben mio
S’io dico di morire?
Questo, madonna, è troppo gran martire.
Ahi vita, ahi mio tesoro,
E perderò il ben mio con dir ch’io moro?
Why deprive me of my love
Why deprive me of my love
if I speak of death?
This pain is too great, my lady.
Alas, life, alas, my treasure,
shall I lose my love by saying I am dying?
Anonymous
Please turn page quietly
13
text
4 Amor, per tua mercé vattene a quella
Amor, per tua mercé vattene a quella
Che m’è così rubella,
E con una saetta
Passale il cor e fa’ di me vendetta.
Dilli: come potete unqua patire
Chi tanto v’ama far, donna, morire?
Love, in your mercy, go to the one
Love, in your mercy, go to the one
who thus resists me,
and with your arrow
piercing her heart, grant me vengeance.
Say to her: how can you ever bear, my lady,
that he who loves you so should die?
Giovanni Maria Bonardo
5 Baci soavi e cari
Baci soavi e cari,
Cibi della mia vita,
Ch’or m’involate hor mi rendete il core:
Per voi convien ch’impari
Come un’alma rapita
Non senta il duol di mort’e pur si more.
Quant’ha di dolce amore,
Perché sempr’io vi baci,
O dolcissime rose,
In voi tutto ripose;
Et s’io potessi ai vostri dolci baci
La mia vita finire,
O che dolce morire!
Sweet and tender kisses
Sweet and tender kisses,
sustenance of my life,
first you seize, and then return my heart:
you want me to learn
how a soul in rapture
feels not the agony of death, yet dies.
There is sweet love enough
for me to kiss you for ever,
O sweetest of roses,
on whom all has ever rested;
and were I able to end my life
with your sweet kisses,
how sweet that death would be!
Giovanni Battista Guarini
6 Se pur non mi consenti
Se pur non mi consenti
Ch’io ami te sì come Amor m’invita,
Donna, non mi consenti
Per giust’almen ch’io ami la mia vita?
Se ciò consenti, ancor consentir dei
Ch’io ami te che la mia vita sei.
Luigi Groto
14
Though you do not allow
Though you do not allow
that I love you as Love invites me to,
is it not just, my lady,
that you at least allow that I love my life?
If this you allow, you must also allow
that I love you, for you are my life.
text
7 Filli cara ed amata
Filli cara ed amata,
Dimmi per cortesia,
Questa tua bella bocca non è mia?
Ahi, non rispondi, ingrata,
E col silenzio nieghi
D’ascoltar i miei prieghi.
Piacciati almen se taci,
D’usar in vece di risposta i baci.
Dear, beloved Phyllis
Dear, beloved Phyllis,
tell me please,
is your sweet mouth not mine?
Alas, you answer not, ungrateful girl,
and with silence refuse
to hear my prayers.
Though you are silent, deign at least
to give me kisses instead of an answer.
Alberto Parma
8 Poiché del mio dolore
Poiché del mio dolore
Tanto ti nutri, Amore,
Libera mai quest’alma non vedrai,
Finché per gl’occhi fore
Lasso non venga il core.
Since my suffering
Since my suffering
provides you, Love, with such sustenance,
you will never see this soul set free
until my eyes reveal
my unhappy heart.
Anonymous
9a Fumia la pastorella – Part 1
Fumia la pastorella,
Tessendo ghirlandetta,
Sen gia cantando in un prato di fiori.
Intorno intorno a quella
Scherzavan per l’erbetta
Ciprigna, il figlio e i pargoletti amori.
Ella rivolta al sole
Dicea queste parole:
Fumia, the shepherdess
Fumia, the shepherdess,
weaving her little garland,
sang as she crossed the flowery field.
All around her,
playing in the grass,
were Venus, her son and the little cupids.
Turning to the sun
she spoke thus:
9b Almo divino raggio – Part 2
‘Almo divino raggio,
Della cui santa luce
Questa lieta stagion s’alluma e ’ndora,
E ’l bel mese di maggio
Oggi per te conduce
Dal ciel in terra la tua vaga Flora,
Deh, quel che sì s’annoia
Cangia in letizia e in gioia.’
Divine and noble ray
‘Divine and noble ray,
whose holy light
gilds and light up this happy season,
through you today
the fair month of May bears
lovely Flora from heaven to earth,
ah, all that was wearisome
turns now to happiness and joy.’
Please turn page quietly
15
text
9c Allora i pastor tutti – Part 3
Allora i pastor tutti
Del Tebro, e Ninfe a schiera
Corsero a l’armonia lieti, e veloci:
E di fior e di frutti
Che porta Primavera,
Gli porgean doni, e con rozze alte voci
Cantavan tuttavia
Le lodi di Fumia.
Then all the shepherds
Then all the shepherds
of the Tiber, and a host of nymphs,
sped joyful to the music:
and offered her gifts
of the flowers and fruit
brought by Spring,
and with voices loud and clear
sang the praises of Fumia.
Antonio Allegretti
10 Se nel partir da voi
Se nel partir da voi, vita mia, sento
Così grave tormento,
Deh, prima che pensar mai di partire,
Donna, poss’io morire,
E se da voi partend’ho tanti guai,
Poss’io prima morir che partir mai.
If when I leave you
If when I leave you, my life, I feel
such great torment,
ah, before you, lady, ever think of leaving,
may I die.
And if when I leave you I feel such sorrow,
may I die rather than ever leave.
Giovanni Maria Bonardo
11 Tra mille fiamme e tra mille catene
Tra mille fiamme e tra mille catene,
Onde n’accend’e lega,
Amor a le mie pene
Scelse la più gentil e la più bella
Amorosa fiammella,
Che sì soavemente
M’impiagò il cor, che per beltà gradita
Morir m’è dolce e non sperar aita.
Anonymous
16
Of the thousand flames and thousand chains
Of the thousand flames and thousand chains
that burn and bind,
Love chose, that I might suffer,
the most beautiful and tender
loving little flame,
who wounded my heart
so gently, that for such welcome beauty
I gladly die and do not hope for help.
text
12 Usciam, ninfe, omai fuor di questi boschi
Usciam, ninfe, omai fuor di questi boschi
E di fior bianch’e gialli
Tessiam ghirlande e cingiansene i crini,
Ché dopo orrida e fiera
Stagion, con fiori e frondi
Torna la desiata primavera.
Orsù facciam le valli
Sonar col canto e su le verd’erbette
Guidiam con dolce suon in gir’i balli.
Nymphs, let us now leave these woods behind
Nymphs, let us now leave these woods behind
and with white and golden flowers
weave garlands with which to bind our brows,
for after fierce and cruel
Winter, the leaves and flowers
of long-awaited Spring are returning.
Come, let the valleys resound with our song,
and let us with sweet sounds
lead the dancing in the meadow.
Anonymous
13 Questa ordì il laccio
Questa ordì il laccio, questa
Sì bella man tra fiori e l’erba il tese,
E questa il cor mi prese e fu sì presta
A trarlo in mezz’a mille fiamme accese.
Or che l’hò qui ristretta,
vendetta, Amor, vendetta!
This hand set the snare
This hand set the snare, this
loveliest of hands laid it midst flowers and grass,
and this hand took my heart and placed it
with such haste amid a thousand burning flames.
Now that I hold it captive here,
vengeance, Love, vengeance!
Giovan Battista Strozzi
14 La vaga pastorella
La vaga pastorella
Sen va tra fiori e l’erbe
Cantando dolcemente, ond’io sospiro
Che la veggio sì bella
E carco di martiro
La seguo tuttavia.
Deh, pastorella mia,
Per dio, non mi fuggire,
Ch’io mi sento a morire.
The pretty shepherdess
The pretty shepherdess
walks through herbs and flowers,
singing sweetly, while I sigh
before her beauty,
and, laden down with suffering,
still I follow her.
Ah, my shepherdess,
for God’s sake, do not run from me,
for I feel as though I might die.
Anonymous
Please turn page quietly
17
text
15 Amor s’il tuo ferire
Amor s’il tuo ferire
Dasse tanto martire
Quanto di Filli i sguardi,
A tuoi pongenti dardi
Non restarebb’alcun amante in vita.
Ché con beltà infinita
Se giace o mira o move o parla o ride,
Atterr’ accor’ impiag’ arde ed uccide.
Love, were your wounds
Love, were your wounds
to give as much pain
as Phyllis’s gaze,
no lover would survive
your keen arrows.
For if, with infinite beauty,
she rests, looks, moves, speaks or laughs
she fells, grieves, wounds, burns and kills.
Anonymous
16 Donna s’io miro voi, giaccio divengo
Donna s’io miro voi, giaccio divengo;
Se di mirar m’astengo,
D’un infinito ardore
Mi si consuma il core.
Non so che m’abbi luoco:
Mirar m’è giaccio il non mirar m’è fuoco.
My lady, if I look at you, I turn to ice
My lady, if I look at you, I turn to ice;
yet if I look not,
my heart is eaten up
with infinite burning desire.
I know not what ails me:
if I look I freeze, if I look not I burn.
Anonymous
17 Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Ardo, sì, ma non t’amo
Perfid’e dispietata,
Indegnamente amata
Da un sì leal amante
Ah, non fia più che del mio amor ti vante,
Perch’ho già sano il core:
Et s’ardo, ardo di sdegn’e non d’amore.
I burn, yes, but love you not
I burn, yes, but love you not,
faithless, merciless girl,
unworthy of the love
of such a constant lover.
Ah, flatter yourself no longer with my love,
for now my heart is tranquil:
and if I burn, it is with anger and not with love.
Giovanni Battista Guarini
18 Ardi o gela a tua voglia
Ardi o gela a tua voglia,
Perfid’ed impudico,
Or amante, or nemico.
Ché d’incostante ingegno
Poco i’ stimo l’amor e men lo sdegno:
E se l’amor fu vano,
Van fia lo sdegno del tuo cor insano.
Torquato Tasso
18
Burn or freeze, as you wish
Burn or freeze, as you wish,
faithless, shameless man,
one moment my lover, the next my enemy.
For I have little regard for the love
of an inconstant man and even less for his anger
and if you loved in vain,
vain too is the anger of your intemperate heart.
text
19 Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia
Arsi ed alsi a mia voglia
Leal non impudico,
Amante non nemico;
E s’al tuo lieve ingegno
Poco cale l’amor e men lo sdegno,
Sdegn’e amor farà vano
L’altiero suon del tuo parlar insano.
I burned and froze, as I wished
I burned and froze, as I wished,
faithful not shameless,
a lover not an enemy;
and if to a frivolous girl
love matters little and anger even less,
both anger and love will be rendered vain
by your proud and intemperate words.
Torquato Tasso
All translations by Susannah Howe, except for the
Monteverdi Canzonette, translations by Keith Anderson.
All © Naxos; reprinted with kind permission.
half page ad in here coming straight from
Barbican
about the performers
About tonight’s performers
Sandrine Expilly
and Les Indes galantes. Other operatic
performances include appearances at
the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Opéra de
Lyon, Zurich Opera and Netherlands
Opera.
Paul Agnew director/tenor
Paul Agnew was born in Glasgow and
read Music as a Choral Scholar at
Magdalen College, Oxford. As an
outstanding interpreter of Baroque
and Classical repertoire he works
regularly with the world’s leading early
music groups and conductors,
including William Christie, Marc
Minkowski, Ton Koopman, John Eliot
Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe and
Emmanuelle Haïm, both in concert and
in opera.
A leading exponent of the French
Baroque haute-contre roles, he made
his critically acclaimed Paris opera
debut singing Hippolyte in Rameau’s
Hippolyte et Aricie at the Palais
Garnier under William Christie. He has
returned to the Opéra National de
Paris in Rameau’s Platée, Les Boréades
20
He is equally in demand on the
international concert platform and
his performances have included
performances with the Berlin and Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras, City
of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra,
Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment,
Les Arts Florissants and the Gabrieli
Consort and Players, as well as regular
appearances at the BBC Proms and the
Edinburgh and Lufthansa Baroque
festivals.
He made his conducting debut with Les
Arts Florissants in the 2006/7 season,
bringing a new dimension to his
longstanding relationship with the
ensemble. He has since conducted it in
Vivaldi’s Vespers, a programme of
Handel odes and anthems,
Lamentazione, a concert devoted to
Italian Baroque polyphony, and The
Indian Queen by Purcell. Paul Agnew is
also co-director of Le Jardin des Voix,
Les Arts Florissants’ academy for
young singers.
Now associate conductor of Les Arts
Florissants, Paul Agnew will this season
launch the complete Monteverdi
Madrigals, a project involving nearly
100 concerts which will continue
into 2014.
Paul Agnew’s discography includes
Monteverdi’s Vespers, Charpentier’s
La descente d’Orphée aux enfers
and Rameau’s Grands motets with
Les Arts Florissants, Beethoven Lieder,
Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, Sally
Beamish’s In Dreaming and Rameau’s
Dardanus.
Miriam Allan soprano
Born in Newcastle, New South Wales,
Miriam Allan has been based in
England since 2003.
She has been a soloist with leading
orchestral and choral organisations
from all over the world, including the
about the performers
Monteverdi Choir and English
Baroque Soloists, London Baroque,
Les Arts Florissants, Auckland
Philharmonia, Concerto Copenhagen,
Il Fondamento, Gewandhaus
Kammerchor, Leipzig
Kammerorchester, Concerto Köln,
ChorWerk Ruhr, Sydney Philharmonia
Choirs, Australian Chamber
Orchestra, Chacona and Arcadia.
She has worked with many of the
leading directors and conductors of
today, including Sir John Eliot
Gardiner, Lars Ulrik Mortensen,
Laurence Cummings, William Christie
and Roy Goodman. She appears on
numerous recordings, highlights of
which include Pinchgut Opera’s Fairy
Queen and Dardanus, The Wonders
of the World with Echo du Danube
and Mozart’s Requiem with the Leipzig
Kammerorchester and Gewandhaus
Kammerchor.
In 2009 she toured Australia with
Ironwood Ensemble and performed
Messiah with the Queensland and
Melbourne Symphony orchestras,
directed by Stephen Layton. After
making her debut with Glyndebourne
Festival Opera in Purcell’s The Fairy
Queen in 2009, she continued with that
production to Paris, Caen and New
York in 2010.
This year’s highlights include Les Arts
Florissants’ ongoing Monterverdi
madrigal project, a return to Australia
for performances with the Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra and her debut
with the Bach Collegium Japan, under
Masaaki Suzuki. She also sings the role
of Costanza in Pinchgut Opera’s
production of Vivaldi’s Griselda.
Miriam Allan is a vocal coach at
Westminster Abbey and Head of
Singing at Bloxham School,
Oxfordshire.
Schlick and with Rudolf Piernay at the
Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
She also participated in masterclasses
with Evelyn Tubb and Anthony Rooley,
Barthold Kuijken, Andrew LawrenceKing, Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Kiri Te
Kanawa and Matthias Goerne.
She is in demand as a soloist in
oratorio as well as Lieder, for which
her regular pianist is Lara Jones. She
has worked with many ensembles
including Les Arts Florissants under
William Christie and Paul Agnew,
L’arte del mondo under Werner
Ehrhardt, and the European Union
Baroque Orchestra and L’Arpeggiata
under Christina Pluhar. Lieder recitals
include the Chelsea Schubert Festival
with Brandon Velarde and Graham
Johnson and a Mendelssohn recital at
Kings Place with Stephan Loges and
Eugene Asti.
In 2009 she took part in the Chicago
Ravinia Festival; that same year she
became a Samling Scholar.
Hannah Morrison soprano
The Scottish-Icelandic soprano
Hannah Morrison studied the piano
and singing at the Maastricht
Academy of Music and completed
her singing studies at the Cologne
Academy of Music with Barbara
Her discography includes a number of
discs of Mendelssohn’s songs and
duets with pianist Eugene Asti.
21
about the performers
Verdi’s Requiem, Pergolesi’s Stabat
mater, Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody,
Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et
de la mer and Mahler’s Das Lied
von der Erde.
Marie Gautrot mezzo-soprano
Marie Gautrot was born in Normandy.
After studying Egyptian archaeology
and ancient history she began vocal
lessons with Marie-Claire Cottin,
among others, and graduated from
the Paris Conservatoire with two
premiers prix.
She is particularly in demand as a
recitalist and has sung Schumann
Lieder at Dijon’s Grand Théâtre, a
project based around George Sand
and Pauline Viardot at the Maintenon
Festival, Brahms Lieder at the Colmar
Festival and songs by Ravel at the
Giverny Festival. In the concert hall she
has also appeared in Debussy’s La
damoiselle élue, Mozart’s Mass in C
and Requiem, Bach’s St John Passion,
22
In the opera house her roles have
included the title-roles in Bizet’s Carmen
and Djamileh and Offenbach’s
La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein,
Orphée (Orphée et Eurydice), Public
Opinion (Offenbach’s Orphée aux
Enfers), Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Mother,
Chinese Cup and Squirrel (L’enfant et
les sortilèges) and Marguerite (Berlioz’s
La damnation de Faust).
Recent highlights have included
Mallika (Lakmé) for Opéra de Rouen,
Flower Maiden (Parsifal) for Opéra de
Nice, a recital of Poulenc and Weill
with Jeanne-Marie Golse in Caen,
Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) in
Rouen and Versailles and Carmen in
Grenoble.
Forthcoming engagements include
La damnation de Faust with Opéra
de Rouen and Opéra de Limoges; for
the latter she will also sing Flora (La
traviata) and Maddalena (Rigoletto).
Sean Clayton tenor
Sean Clayton trained at the
Birmingham Conservatory and the
Royal College of Music.
His operatic roles have included Elder
Gleaton (Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah)
and Don Eusebio (Rossini’s
L’occasione fa il ladro) for Wexford
Festival Opera; Apollo (Semele) for
British Youth Opera; Shepherd (Orfeo)
for English Bach Festival Trust and
English Touring Opera, as well as, for
the latter, Sailor (Dido and Aeneas);
Rupert Burns (The Impresario) and
Toby (The Medium) for Second
Movement; Fenton (The Merry Wives
of Windsor) for Opera South;
M. Prospect (Offenbach’s Not in front
of the Waiter) for Jubilee Opera; and
Giocondo (Rossini’s La pietra del
about the performers
paragone) and Fenton (Falstaff) for
Stanley Hall Opera.
Sean Clayton has sung in concert with
the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and
has also appeared with the Apollo
Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber
Orchestra, the Irish Baroque Orchestra,
the London Mozart Players and the
Ten Tors Orchestra, as well as at
Symphony Hall, Birmingham, the
Queen Elizabeth Hall, St Martin in
the Fields, St John’s, Smith Square,
Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool and the
Music Hall, Aberdeen, as well as in
most of the major UK cathedrals.
Recent and current engagements
include Little Bat (Susannah) for
English Touring Opera, Sandy (The
Lighthouse) at the Montepulciano
Festival, Aurelius (King Arthur) with
Der Lautten Compagney and The
Fairy Queen in Aix-en-Provence, as
well as tours with Les Arts Florissants.
(Belshazzar and Theodora), Hervé
Niquet (Marais’s Semele, which he
has also recorded), Anthony Rooley
(Hayes’ The Passions), Václav Luks
(St Matthew Passion and Handel’s
La Resurrezione), Maurice Steger
(Handel’s Acis and Galatea), Jan
Tomasz Adamus (Messiah) and
Paul Agnew (works by Purcell and
Monteverdi), among many others.
Lisandro Abadie bass
Lisandro Abadie was born in Buenos
Aires, Argentina. He obtained his
singing diplomas at the Schola
Cantorum Basiliensis (with Evelyn Tubb)
and the Lucerne School of Music (with
Peter Brechbühler). He was awarded
the Edwin Fischer Gedenkpreis in 2006
and was a finalist in the 2008 Handel
Singing Competition.
He has sung under the direction of
William Christie (The Fairy Queen and
Landi’s Sant’Alessio), Facundo Agudin
(Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, The
Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro,
Bach’s St John Passion, the Requiems
of Mozart and Fauré and Puccini’s
Mass), Christophe Rousset (Pergolesi’s
San Guglielmo), Laurence Cummings
In 2010 he created the title-role of the
opera Cachafaz by Oscar Strasnoy,
staged by Benjamin Lazar in Quimper,
Rennes and Paris.
He has collaborated with ensembles
such as Les Arts Florissants, Collegium
1704 and Mala Punica, and regularly
performs with the pianist and
composer Paul Suits (with whom he
premiered his song-cycle Three Views
of War in 2008).
Notable among Lisandro Abadie’s
discography are his recording of
Hayes’ The Passions, which received
a Choc de Classica award, and the
premiere recording of Christian
Favre’s Requiem conducted by
Facundo Agudin.
This season has featured tours with the
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
23
about the performers
(Messiah, with Cummings), with Les
Talens Lyriques (San Guglielmo) and
with Les Arts Florissants, as well as in Le
bourgeois gentilhomme with Le Poème
Harmonique in Madrid, and in Mayr’s
opera Demetrio with Agudin.
Les Arts Florissants
The renowned vocal and instrumental
ensemble Les Arts Florissants was
founded in 1979 by the FrancoAmerican harpsichordist and conductor
William Christie, and takes its name from
an opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Since its production of Atys by Lully at
the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1987, it
is in the field of opera that Les Arts
Florissants has found most success.
Notable productions include works by
Rameau (Les Indes galantes in 1990
and 1999, Hippolyte et Aricie in 1996,
Les Boréades in 2003, Les Paladins in
2004), Lully and Charpentier (Médée
in 1993 and 1994, Armide in 2008),
Handel (Orlando in 1993, Acis and
Galatea in 1996, Semele in 1996 and
2010, Alcina in 1999, Hercules in 2004
and 2006, L’Allegro, il Moderato ed
il Penseroso in 2007), Purcell (King
Arthur in 1995, Dido and Aeneas
in 2006,The Fairy Queen in 2010),
Mozart (The Magic Flute in 1994,
Die Entführung aus dem Serail in
1995) and Monteverdi, whose opera
trilogy was performed at the Teatro
Real de Madrid between 2008
and 2010.
Les Arts Florissants has an equally high
profile in the concert hall, giving concert
performances of operas (Zoroastre and
Les fêtes d’Hébé by Rameau, Idomenée
by Campra, Jephté by Montéclair,
L’Orfeo by Rossi, Susanna and Julius
Caesar by Handel and The Indian
Queen by Purcell), as well as secular
chamber works (Actéon, Les plaisirs de
Versailles and La descente d’Orphée
aux enfers by Charpentier), sacred
music (Grands motets by Rameau,
Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed by Aldridge Print Group; advertising by Cabbell (tel. 020 8971 8450)
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24
Mondonville and Desmarest) and
Handel oratorios.
The ensemble has a discography of
over 70 CD recordings, including the
recent Lamentazione, the first recording
to be conducted by Paul Agnew.
For 20 years the ensemble has been
artist-in-residence at the théâtre de
Caen. Les Arts Florissants also tours
widely within France, and is a frequent
ambassador for French culture abroad,
regularly appearing at the Brooklyn
Academy, the Lincoln Center in New
York, the Barbican Centre, the Vienna
Festival and Madrid’s Teatro Real.
Paul Agnew and Jonathan Cohen have
recently been appointed associate
conductors, directing Les Arts
Florissants each season in both smalland large-scale programmes.
Les Arts Florissants receive financial support from the
Ministry of Culture and Communication, the City of
Caen and the Région Basse-Normandie. They are
artists in residence at the théâtre de Caen. Imerys is
the Principal Sponsor of Les Arts Florissants.
Barbican Centre
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