L’Estro d’Orfeo & Leonor de Lera – L’arte Di Diminuire (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 01:09:11 minutes | 2,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Challenge Classics
Diminutions, the art of extemporary embellishment or melodic variation, were an essential part of performance practice of the Renaissance and early Baroque periods. The basis of diminutions is the fragmentation of a long note or series of long notes into many shorter and faster ones that move around the original melody. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, a composition as written by the composer was often regarded as raw material and it was normal and even required of musicians to embellish the works performed. The number of treatises that were devoted to the teaching of this subject is a clear indication of the importance of diminutions at that time.
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L’Estro d’Orfeo – Altri canti d’amor (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 50:00 minutes | 947 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Challenge Classics
This first recording from the ensemble L’Estro d’Orfeo borrows its title Altri canti d’amor from a madrigal taken from Monteverdi’s Eighth Book. The program covers the Italian seventeenth century, and in particular the Northern Italian School, more precisely the Venetian sphere—Monteverdi, Marini, Merula, Cavalli, and so on. You’ll find purely instrumental pieces, as well as vocal ones—but let’s mention straight away that all the vocal pieces are performed here in instrumental versions. One might be surprised that these pieces singing of love are entrusted to instruments and not voices; this is precisely what the musicians from the L’Estro d’Orfeo want to demonstrate, that there are a thousand ways to sing about love. The aim is also to emphasize how, in this pivotal era, instrumental music is becoming increasingly important, leaving its usual role of accompaniment to embrace the one that’s much more gratifying, with its own technique and virtuosity that are developing quickly. The vocal parts are thus covered either by the cornetto or the string instruments.
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