![]() ![]() The 16th century had a far more flexible attitude to music than we do, and the mixing of vocal and instrumental forces was far more common than now. If this is a programme of madrigals, where were the singers? Well, there weren't any. ![]() This list of performers might, at first, cause a slight jolt. The performers were Oliver Webber (violin), Teresa Caudle (violin), Wendi Kelly (contralto viola), David Brooker (tenor viola) and Christopher Suckling (bass violin). This last quotation is from Oliver Webber's programme note for a fascinating concert, The Madrigal Transformed, which Webber's group The Monteverdi String Band performed at the Echi Lontani Festival in Cagliari in Sardinia on, in which the group explored the influence of ornamentation and the seconda pratica on contemporary madrigals. 'Writers like Vincenzo Galilei (father of the famously persecuted astronomer, Galileo) espoused the increasingly common view that the words should be served by the music - "prima la parola" – and that composers should use whatever means at their disposal to ensure this.' Music was no different and there was a lot of philosophical discussion about the role of words and music. Old classical texts were re-examined, re-translated and re-discovered, whole continents were being discovered and a new way of looking at the world. The development of the Italian Madrigal in the 16th century took place at a time of great artistic ferment when artists of all kinds were making discoveries. The Monteverdi String Band at the Echi Lontani ![]()
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