Giulio Caccini - Le nuove musiche

Le nuove musiche is a collection of monodies and songs for solo voice and basso continuo by the composer Giulio Caccini (October 8, 1551 – December 10, 1618), published in Florence in July 1602. It is one of the earliest and most significant examples of music written in the early baroque style of the "seconda prattica (Stile moderno)". It contains 12 madrigals and 10 arias.

The volume was dedicated to Lorenzo Salviati and was released in July of 1602.

The introduction to this volume is probably the most clearly written description of the purpose, intent and correct performance of monody from the time. It includes musical examples of ornaments, for example, how a specific passage can be ornamented in several different ways, according to the precise emotion that the singer wishes to convey. Caccini expressed disappointment at inappropriate ornamentation by the singers of his day.

Florence and Venice were the two most progressive musical centers in Europe at the end of the 16th century, and the combination of musical innovations from each place resulted in the development of what came to be known as the Baroque style. Caccini's achievement was to create a type of direct musical expression, as easily understood as speech, which later developed into the operatic recitative, and which influenced numerous other stylistic and textural elements in Baroque music.

Montserrat Figueras - Vocal
Hopkinson Smith - Lute, Baroque Guitar
Robert Clancy - Baroque Guitar, Chitaronne
Jordi Savall - Viola da Gamba
Xenia Schindler - Harp

Stabat Mater - Pergolesi - Scarlatti



Stabat Mater is a thirteenth century Roman Catholic sequence variously attributed to Innocent III and Jacopone da Todi. Its title is an abbreviation of the first line, Stabat mater dolorosa ("The sorrowful mother was standing"). The hymn, one of the most powerful and immediate of extant medieval poems, meditates on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ's mother, during his crucifixion. Text and Translation here.

It has been set to music by many composers, among them Alessandro Scarlatti and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.

Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2, 1660 – October 24, 1725) was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera.
His Stabat Mater was composed for the Order of "Cavalieri della Virgine dei Dolori" in Naples, who, annually, honored the Virgin by dedicating to her, during the Lenten season, a Stabat Mater. The Order was very poor, what may be the explanation for the small number of artists the score was written for.

20 Years later the same Order commissioned
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (January 4, 1710 – 16 or March 17, 1736) for a new Stabat Mater as a replacement for the rather "old-fashioned" one by Alessandro Scarlatti for identical forces which had been performed each Good Friday in Naples. Whilst classical in scope, the opening section of the setting demonstrates Pergolesi's mastery of the Italian baroque 'durezze e ligature' style, characterized by numerous suspensions over a faster, conjunct bassline. The work remained popular, becoming the most frequently printed work of the 18th century, and being arranged by a number of other composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, who used it as the basis for his psalm "Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083".