"What particularly strikes the listener in these works is the extreme intensity and depth of the musical discourse, as regards both counterpoint and harmony. They are compositions that reveal fluent and engaging liveliness, along with a use of counterpoint that was unusual for the period. Trabaci achieves depth and complexity by maintaining mobility among the parts, creating effects of passing dissonance by means of deliberately clashing second, seventh and ninth intervals. Indeed, the intensity of his music owes much to his taste for dissonant harmonies, often the fruit of diminished fourts and raised fifth, and to his predilection for chromaticism. This general tendency towards unusual and refined harmonies and counterpoint is particularly important for the history of keyboard music as it moved away from Renaissance concept of perfect harmony towards the search for expressiveness typical of the Baroque age. The first book of the 'Ricercate, Canzone franzese, Capricci, Canti fermi, Gagliarde, Partite diverse, Toccate ...' was printed in Naples in 1603, in a luxurious edition in open score that contained a wide range of compositions. There can be no doubt that Girolamo Frescobaldi was familiar with the publication, since from 1615 onwards his own works reveal evident traces of Trabaci's creative genius.
"Although he is considered one of the foremost composers of the Neapolitan school of the early 1600s, Giovanni Maria Trabaci was actually born around 1575 in the little village of Irsina, at the time known as Montepeloso, in the southern Basilicata region. Although his early musical education probably took place between Matera and Potenza, we know for sure that in 1594 he was already in Naples, a singer of the church of the Annunziata, and at practically the same time acting as organist at the Oratorio dei Filippini. At the time Naples was under the dominion of the Spanish crown. Governed by a viceroy, it was a centre of artistic endeavour of the first order as regards music, the figurative arts and literature. In 1601 Trabaci's genius as a composer and organist was rewarded by his appointment as organist at the royal chapel in Naples. The Flemish composer Giovanni de Macque certainly had an influence on his artistic development, as did Prince Carlo Gesualdo di Venosa, with whom de Macque was in contact. From Gesualdo, Trabaci must have absorbed the tendency to experiment with unusual, dissonant harmonies.
"During this period Trabaci published in Naples numerous sacred and secular vocal works, as well as the 1603 volume of keyboard pieces. These achievements brought him great fame, to the extent that at the death of Giovanni de Macque in 1614 he was appointed chapel master at the court of the Spanish viceroy. In 1615 the second volume of keyboard music was published, and collaboration with other Neapolitan patrons encouraged him to composer secular works in Spanish and to publish in 1634 the major series of the four Passions for voices and instrumental ensemble. Trabaci died in Naples in 1647, the very year in which the Masaniello uprising against the court of the Spanish viceroy involved the city in revolt and bloodshed.
"The 1603 volume opens with a series of ricercars that reveal supremely skilful counterpoint and surprising originality. The 12 compositions vary considerable in form, ranging from a single-subject piece described as a 'fugue' to works with four subjects. While some of these use highly complex counterpoint, such as inversion of subject or the temporary modification of some pitches of the subject according to solmisation, others are modified in a much freer manner. One of the subjects to feature here is the 'Rugiero' melody, borrowed from folk music and also used for the 'Partite sopra Rugiero'; by contract, the 'Ricercata del decimo tono' finishes with the free style of the toccata. Next comes an impressive series of seven 'Canzone franzese', an instrumental agenre that tends to be light and free. These pieces embody a remarkable variety of rhythmical elements, freedom of form and melodic inventiveness. Of particular note is the astounding toccata-like opening of the 'Canzona franzesa quarta', which concludes with a heady display of virtuoso skill; or indeed the variety achieved by sections of contrasting character in the third and sixth canzonas; to say nothing of the harmonic extravanganza of the 'Canzona franzesa settima cromatica'.
"The four compositions that make up the 'Canto fermo' deserve particular attention, in that the 'cantus firmus' is based on a meldoy known in the 17th century as 'La Spagna', in this case entrusted one by one to the four parts, from the soprano to the basso. Trabaci handles the other three parts as an imitation, combining inventiveness and taste with remarkable elegance. The compositions collected under the titled 'Durezze et ligature' and 'Consonanze stravaganti' are also interesting in the way the composer avoid clear formal structures, and instead achieves unexpected harmonic developments of astounding audacity. Trabaci's toccatas follow a similarly free and imaginative harmonic framework, often adopting more serries passages to great rhetorical and expressive effect, moreover in a period that preceded Frescobaldi's toccatas by several years. The two series of partitas based on folk songs such as 'Fedele' and 'Rugiero' provide a rich collection of variations of great impact that both surprise and delight.
"The second volume of keyboard music published by Trabaci in 1615 opens with a new series of 12 ricercars that are supremely elegant in melody, and at the same time also highly complex in form. Much of the second volume is dedicated to a work conceived as a source for church organists who played at Mass and Vespers: a series of 'Cento Versi sopra li Otto Toni Ecclesiastici', consisting of 100 short verses divided into eight sections, each one corresponding to one of the eight tones of the Gregorian Chant. In this recording I have selected a number of verses on the eighth tone, the last being a quadruple canon, in otder to create a Magnificat in alternation with Gregorian chant. The harmonic and expressive impact of the four toccatas is even more extreme. Agile 'gagliarda' dance movements in four and five parts are included in this volume. Last but not least there is the madrigal by Jacob Arcadelt, 'Ancidetemi pur', that many Italian keyboard composers used as a basis for new compositions. Trabaci reworked the piece into a toccata in which the words 'gioia', 'martiri' and 'sospiri' (joy, martyrdom, sighs) of the madrigal text are transformed into passages that would have reminded listeners of the time of the original meaning of the words.
"The organ in the Church of San'Antonio in Salandra, a small town in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, is a rare example of a 16th century organ built according to the southern model. Probably Neapolitan in design, it feautres a case, or façade, covered with elegant painted decorations and inscribed with the date 1570. Despite certain 18th-century modiciations involving the replacement of a number of mechanical parts, the 16th-century organ pipes have been preserved, such that today it is possible to appreciate the sound of an organ typical of Trabaci's day, whereas the instruments he actually played during his lifetimes in Naples have all been destroyed or radically altered. Because he was born in nearby Irsina in 1575, it is also highly likely that Giovanni Maria Trabaci had the chance to play the Salandra organ. The sound of the organ is diaphonous and airy, with a distinctly accentuated speech of sound that is due to the narrowness of the organ pipes. The background noises derive from the manual bellows, which invest the instrument with a veries, almost human, breath-like sound.
"The harpsichord works are played on a copy of a Neapolitan harpsichord of the mid-17th century, currently conserved in The Hague. Its distinctive sound is due to the special construction techniques adopted by harpsichord builders in Naples during Trabaci's lifetime." (Francesco Cera, 2014. From the liner notes.)
Performer: Francesco Cera
1.1. Libro I: Canzona Franzesa Settima Cromatica
1.2. Libro I: Canto Fermo Secondo Del Secondo Tono
1.3. Libro I: Consonanze Stravaganti
1.4. Libro I: Toccata Seconda Ottavo Tono
1.5. Libro I: Canzona Franzesa Prima
1.6. Libro I: Toccata Prima Secondo Tono
1.7. Libro I: Canzone Sesta
1.8. Libro I: Ricercata Nono Tono Con Tre Fughe
1.9. Libro I: Durezze Et Ligature
1.10. Libro I: Canzona Franzesa Terza
1.11. Libro I: Canto Fermo Quarto Del Primo Tono
1.12. Libro I: Ricercata Del Decimo Tono
1.13. Libro II: Versetti Dell'ottavo Tono (Magnificat)
1.14. Libro II: Ricercata Del Sesto Tono Cromatico
1.15. Libro II: Toccata Quarta A Cinque
1.16. Libro II: Ricercata Del Primo Tono Con Tre Fughe
2.1. Libro I: Canzona Franzesa Quarta
2.2. Libro I: Partite Sopra Fedele
2.3. Libro I: Canzona Franzesa Seconda
2.4. Libro I: Canto Fermo Primo Del Primo Tono
2.5. Libro I: Gagliarda Quarta
2.6. Libro I: Gagliarda Settima
2.7. Libro I: Gagliarda Ottava
2.8. Libro I: Ricercata Ottavo Tono Sopra Rugiero, Con Tre Fughe
2.9. Libro I: Partite Sopra Rugiero
2.10. Libro I: Ricercata Del Quarto Tono Con Tre Fughe, Et Inganni
2.11. Libro II: Toccata Seconda & Ligature
2.12. Libro II: Gagliarda Terza Sopra La Mantoana
2.13. Libro II: Ancidetemi Pur
2.14. Libro II: Gagliarda Quarta Alla Spagnola
2.15. Libro II: Toccata Prima
2.16. Libro II: Gagliarda Quinta Cromatica Detta La Trabacina
2.17. Libro II: Ricercata Quarto Tono Con Tre Fughe E Suori Riversi
No comments:
Post a Comment