Simone Vallerotonda, I Bassifondi, Bor Zuljan – Corbetta: La Guitarre Royalle (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:54 minutes | 1,00 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
After “Roma ’600”, dedicated to the cultured and popular music of the Eternal City, I Bassifondi explore the music of the most famous baroque guitarist in 17th-century Europe, who brought the guitar to England and then to the court of the Sun King in France: Francesco Corbetta. The trio, led by Simone Vallerotonda, welcomes a special guest, Bor Zuljan, one of the best lutenists on the scene, with whom Simone Vallerotonda plays a concerto and several “pièces de caractère” for two guitars. This collection represents the triumph of virtuosity, refinement and harmonic experimentation in the 17th century. A music that takes the guitars beyond their limits, competing, and perhaps surpassing, their historical rival, the lute. To seal the recording there are four vocal tracks dedicated to the Kings of England and the Duke of York, in the French style. A visionary recording of rare beauty!
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I Bassifondi, Simone Vallerotonda – Roma ‘600 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:34 minutes | 1004 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
A journey through seventeenth-century Rome, the rough and magnificent city where Caravaggio and Stradella lived. Strict counterpoint and learned polyphony in the lute and keyboard pieces by Kapsberger, Pasquini and Frescobaldi mingle with light dances and popular songs for guitar. Improvisation is the feature linking both sound-worlds: the high culture of church chapels and noble palaces, and the lore of streets and taverns. A careful study of the original sources guided the choices as to instruments and interpretation. According to historically informed practice, the celebrated Antidotum Tarantulæ and further early specimens of tarantella, as written down by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, are played on bagpipes, drums and guitars.
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I Bassifondi, Simone Vallerotonda – Alfabeto falso (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 50:01 minutes | 476 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
After the success of ‘L’ultimo romano’, his album of music for archlute from the 1718 collection of the Roman composer Giovanni Zamboni, Simone Vallerotonda presents something totally new with his Baroque ‘power trio’ I Bassifondi: ‘Alfabeto falso’. Their debut album is devoted to Italian and Spanish music for guitar and theorbo from the first half of the seventeenth century. A little-known repertory, characterised by rhythmic oddities and harmonic extravagances that challenge those of contemporary jazz. Ordinary ‘alfabeto’ (alphabet) was the system used by guitarists of the period to mark chords: each letter corresponded to a single chord. But, in the ‘false alphabet’, those letters which were marked with a slash indicated chords containing dissonances, often very bold. The trio, comprising guitar/theorbo, percussion instruments and colachon, reconstructs an ensemble typical of the seventeenth century. Breathtaking rhythms, ‘dirty’ chords, improvisations and variations: these are the colours they seek to convey in their sound. The beauty and the challenge of this disc lie precisely in providing an interpretation that respects everything notated in the score, and in the choice of arrangements and timbres. This music sounds modern and perhaps slightly provocative to us, but all of it was written around 1640!
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