SOLO

Orpheus’ Lute - Improvisation and Wonder in Humanist Italy

  • Towards the end of the 15th century the lute became the instrument of predilection of the European courts. Considered as the Orpheus’ lyre by the humanists, it enchanted the courtiers by its sounds and harmony.

    The first music written for this instrument dates from this avant-gardist passage of the century and in 1507 the first printed book of instrumental music was published in Venice. Lute players, such as Marco Dall'Aquila, Giovan Maria Giudeo, Joan Ambrosio Dalza and especially the cantori al liuto, such as Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Marchetto Cara were sought after by the most important courts, such as that of the Este in Ferrara, Gonzaga in Mantua and the Medicis in Florence. But the authors of the first works for lute were above all great improvisers, inventing ex-tempore polyphonic pieces (ricercari), different dances, such as piva, bassadanza and calata, and verses in ottava rima.

    This period of high humanist and cultural flowering was marked by great discoveries and experimentation in several fields, including music. Figures like Leonardo da Vinci, searched for new sounds by inventing new instruments. The lute has also benefited from such experiences and its surprising variations will be presented here for the first time in this almost entirely improvised program.

  • Ricercare

    Ottava d’introduzione

    Calata ala spagnola (after J. A. Dalza)

    Calata ala spagnola ditto Terzetti (after J. A. Dalza)

    Ricercare

    Malor me bat (Johannes Ockeghem)

    Bassadanza

    Ricercare

    Zephyro Spira (Bartolomeo Tromboncino)

    Ricercare dietro

    Ricercare

    Padoana descordata (after Vincenzo Capirola)

    Che Faralla (Michele Pesenti / Vincenzo Capirola)

    Ricercare

    Passamezzo e Saltarello ala Bolognesa (after Giovanni Maria da Crema)

    Su, su, leva (Bartolomeo Tromboncino)

    Piva (after J. A. Dalza)

  • “The day closed with a most impressive recital by Bor Zuljan, […] One really had the sensation that one was hearing exactly what one would have heard from a lutenist-singer giving an evening’s entertainment to courtiers at an Italian court around the year 1500. Bor Zuljan moved effortlessly between recercars, songs and song intabulations, with a sense of complete familiarity with the material, exactly as the lutenists of the time would have had.”

    Chris Goodwin, Lute News 125, May 2018

Dowland - A Fancy

  • The first notes of the descending chromatic theme break the silence and it seems as if time has stopped. The listener is drawn into the world of John Dowland, the greatest lutenist of all, in a journey through multiple shades of melancholy and lucent hope. Never before had the lute sounded as expressive and colourful as in these masterful Fancies, as dynamic as in these sparkling dances: Renaissance lute music here reached its summit. In this programme Bor Zuljan explores these qualities, breathing new life into Dowland's masterpieces.

  • A Fantasia (P71) 

    Preludium

    A Fancy (P6)

    A Dream

    The Right Honourable, the Lady Clifton’s Spirit

    Forlorn Hope Fancy (P2)

    Pavana Johan Douland

    Galliarde (anon, Aegidius Ms)

    A Fancy (P73)

    Lachrimae

    Can she excuse

    A Fancy (P5)

    Fortune My Foe

    Sir John Smith, His Almain    

    My Lady Hundson’s Puffe

Il liuto Cromatico

(Dowland in Italy)

  • John Dowland / Philippe Rosseter

    A Fantasia

    John Dowland

    Forlorn Hope Fancy

    Joachim Van de Hove

    Allemande

    Saltarello (improvisation)

    Nicolas Vallet

    La Mendiante Fantasye

    John Dowland

    Pavan Johan Douland

    Anon. (Aegidius lute book)

    Galliard

    Gregorio Huwet

    A Fantasia

    ———————

    Michelangelo Galilei

    Toccata

    Corrente

    Volta

    Pietro Paolo Melli

    Il Ciarlino Capriccio Cromatico

    Corrente detta l’Alfonsina

    Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger

    Toccata 3a

    Bellerofonte Castaldi

    Cromatica Corrente

    Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger

    Toccata 6ta

    Pietro Paolo Melli

    Corrente Cromatica detta la Bernardella

    Volta Cromatica la Savia

    Alessandro Piccinini

    Ricercar Primo

    Passacaglia

duo

Contaminations

with Marco Ambrosini - nyckelharpa.

  • In this world full of contaminations of all kinds, two musicians meet: Contaminated by the love for their unusual instruments, the archlute and the nyckelharpa, and for music from here and elsewhere, from the past and today, they converse in search of a common language, a new idiom where every contamination is an asset to enrich the vocabulary and to broaden the field of possibilities. They converse in this improvised flow to contaminate the audience with their joy of playing together, with their joy of sharing a musical moment without limits, metaphysical and human.

The Birth of the Guitar

(Il Bordelletto)

with Massimiliano Dragoni - Percussion

  • Tracing the origins of one of today’s most popular instruments takes us to Spain and Italy of the Renaissance. First music for this instrument dates from the mid 16th century, although guitar shaped plucked-strings instruments appear at least half a century before.

    This colorful programme imbued with improvisation depicts the creation of guitar’s particular idiom and techniques, from the intimate polyphonic style of the 16th century, to the sparkling dances that defined the guitar music of the following centuries, all the way to flamenco.

Toutes les nuits

DULCES EXUVIAE

with Romain Bockler - baritone

  • In nocte consilium - the night brings counsel. Poets have always found the night to be a time of appeasement; for astronomers it is a long-awaited moment to observe the stars and planets. Mystics, however, have spent entire nights searching for the enigmatic signs of a divine presence. This programme forms a journey from dusk to dawn and guides us through various nights as described by several composers of the 16th century: we travel from hope to absence, from the sweetness of love’s dream to the chills of eternal night; the clear light of the moon nonetheless guides lovers to their reunion and our journey ends in the light of the first rays of the sun. Janequin, Lassus, Palestrina, Guerrero and their Franco-Flemish, Italian and Spanish colleagues lead us as we explore these nights, sometimes dark and terrifying, sometimes radiant with starlight, tranquil, and filled with love.

trio

Tales from the ancient Balkans

with Ratko & Radiša Teofilović - voice

  • Baba is a contemporary narration on ancestral beauty and wisdom, an infinite dialogue between old and new, the east and the west. The archlute in the role of the narrator skilfully transforms itself into different traditional instruments of the Levantine region, its roots, and takes the listener into different musical landscapes, nostalgic and full of old symbols. There he encounters centuries old stories in the form of folk songs, personified by the unique voices of the Teofilovići twins.

La Lyra

La villanella

The birth of southern Italian song

With Pino De Vittorio - voice

2-5 musicians

  • Southern Italy has developed a particular cultural richness thanks to its geographical position at the very center of the Mediterranean, as well as its political history. Greek and Arab influences and later the Spanish domination between the Renaissance and Baroque periods, have left their mark on its culture and languages. Musical tradition also benefits from this melting pot: not only instruments such as the Calabrian lyre of Byzantine origin, the colascione—a cousin of the Turkish saz—and of course the guitars introduced by the Spaniards, but also new musical styles emerge in this colorful region. Among these, the Neapolitan villanella appeared in the first half of the 16th century in Spanish Naples: polyphonic music written in dialect and with a very popular rhythmic-melodic influence. In this colorful program, the voice and extraordinary presence of Pino De Vittorio blends with the strings of the La Lyra ensemble directed by Bor Zuljan, for this tribute to the birth of southern Italian song: between the classical and popular tradition of the Renaissance, from the first villanelles in dialect to those of the Cieco Pugliese Giacomo Gorzanis, interwoven with popular tarantellas and instrumental dances.

  • Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Da che si parte il sol

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Chiara più che ‘l char sol

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Duca vi voglio dir

    Giacomo Gorzanis - ​​Basciami con ssa bocca

     

    Anon. (Napoli 1537) ​​- Madonna tu mi fai lo scorrucciato

    Giovanni Maria da Crema​ - Passamezzo e Saltarello ala Bolognesa

    Anon. (Napoli 1537) - ​​Boccuccia de nu piérzico apreturo

     

    G. De Vittorio ​​​- Stu pettu è fatto cimbali d'amuri

    Vincenzo Capirola - ​​La Villanella

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Non è amor

     

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Alma perche t’affliggi

    Marco Dall’Aquila - ​​La Traditora

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Sta vecchia cannaruta

     

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Passo e mezzo Antico Primo

    ​​​​​Padoanna del detto

    ​​​​​Saltarel del detto

     

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Scarpello si vedrà

    Anon.​​​​ - Tarantella di Sannicandro

     

    Anon. (Napoli 1537) ​​- Che sia malditta l’acqua sta mattina

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - Sona Baloni

    Giacomo Gorzanis​​ - L’altro giorno mi disse