Observations of Venice – Cinquecento consort music
ensemble feuervogel; Ian Harrison (percussion)
rec. 2025, Theodor-Egel-Saal, Freiburg, Germany
Reviewed as a download
Coviello Classics COV92505 [60]

For many centuries people across the world have been fascinated by Venice. There may have been different reasons: history, architecture, visual arts, music. In the baroque period a stay in Venice was an indispensable stage in the Grand Tour of young aristocrats. When Vivaldi was working there, visitors admired the performances by the young girls at the Ospedale della Pietà. In Monteverdi’s time, it was St Mark’s and the performances of music there which made a huge impression on visitors. One of them was Thomas Coryat (c1577-1617), an English traveller and writer. From May to October 1608 he travelled through France and Italy to Venice, and returned via Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1611 he published his memories under the title Coryat’s Crudities hastily gobbled up in Five Months Travels in France, Italy, &c. His impressions of Venice are the starting point of the programme recorded by the ensemble feuervogel, a consort of recorders, in collaboration with the percussionist Ian Harrison.

The booklet includes excerpts from Coryat’s book, in the form of an ‘interview’. Rather than performing music that he may have heard during his visit – which would have been highly speculative – the performers have selected music of the kind that was performed in Venice during the 16th and early 17th centuries. The three main genres are dance music, original instrumental works, and vocal pieces in instrumental performances.

The programme starts with a sequence of pieces by Giorgio Mainerio, who was a priest and worked for most of his life in Udine and Aquileia. However, his only surviving music is a collection of dances, Il primo libro de balli, which was printed in Venice in 1578. It is considered one of the most important sources of ensemble dance music from the second half of the 16th century. Such music can be played by various insztruments, such as a recorder consort. Here Ian Harrison plays an important role as well. If percussion was included is hard to say; its participation was usually not indicated. In the baroque period dance suites were mostly not intended for dancing, but rather to be played and listened to. That is different with 16th-century dance music, which often may have used to accompany dancing. That makes the inclusion of percussion here quite plausible.

Most of Mainerio’s dances are part of the section called ‘The marketplace of San Marco – a meeting place for cultures’. Coryat writes: “Here you may both see all manner of fashions of attire, and heare all the languages of Christendome. This part is worthy to be celebrated for that famous concourse and meeting of so many distinct and sundry nations. There you may see many Polonians, Slavonians, Persians, Grecians, Turks, Jewes, Christians of all the famousest regions of Christendome, and each nation distinguished from another by their proper and peculiar habits. A singular shew, and by many degrees the worthiest of all the Europaean Countries.”

This is illustrated by dances which refer to nations, such as Ungarescha (Hungary) and Tedescha (Germany), or a city (Ballo Milanese). Also in this section are Girolamo Parabosco, organist at St Mark’s, and his successor, Claudio Merulo. They are included because Coryat obviously also witnessed the music that was performed at the basilica. Philippe Verdelot was from France, and stayed in Venice some years in the first decade of the 16th century. He played an important role in the development of the madrigal. One of his madrigals is included here.

The next section may seem to focus on more ‘popular’ music, as it is called ‘The stage of the ballad-singers – jesters and improvisers’. This is connected to what Coryat writes about the mountebanks of Venice. In an article published on the internet by the Cambridge University Press I found this description of a mountebank: “An itinerant doctor/pharmacist who typically enticed potential patrons with an array of musical and theatrical entertainments”. Coryat describes one of them: “He was noted to be a singular fellow for singing extemporall songes, and for a pretty kinde of musicke that he made with two bones betwixt his fingers.”

As an illustration of this aspect of Venetian daily life we hear five dances, this time from a collection by Francesco Bendusi, another composer who has only left dance music. Some of the dances’ titles refer to popular songs, such as Moschetta and Gioia. A popular genre was also the villanella, which had its origin in Naples. Chi la gagliarda by Baldassare (or Baldisserra) Donato, a Venetian and pupil of Adrian Willaert, is an example of such a piece. With Barriera, at the end of this section, we return to the dance. Fabritio Caroso was a dancing-master, who published two manuals which are of great importance as sources of dance steps.

Among the fascination of visitors were also ‘Venice’s noble ladies – wisdom and seduction’, as the third section is entitled, and especially the courtesans. The author Alyssa Palombo writes: “During the age of the Venetian Republic, Venice’s courtesans were famous the world over for their beauty, intelligence, and talent. Indeed, by the 18th century they were something of a tourist attraction for young men on the Grand Tour of Europe.” Coryat confirms this: “Also thou wilt finde the Venetian Cortezan (if she be a selected woman indeede) a good Rhetorician, and a most elegant discourser.” It is illustrated by madrigals, performed here instrumentally in so-called diminutions by Giovanni Bassano, one of the most prominent composers of such pieces. Cipriano de Rore was one of the main composers of madrigals, and these were often used for diminutions. Celeste Giglio is Fabritio Caroso’s version of the popular song known as La Monica.

In the centre of the last section, ‘Farewell to Venice – memories of the brilliant city’, is another madrigal by Rore, probably the most famous madrigal of the Renaissance, Anchor che col partire, arranged numerous times, and here performed in diminutions by Bassano. The last say has Adrian Willaert, who in Io amai sempre expresses his love of Venice: “I’ve always loved, and I love deeply still, and love that sweet place more, from day to day, where I’m often forced to return weeping, whenver Love deceives me.”

What is called “Observations of Venice” can also be considered an ode to the city and its musical culture. The programme offers a portrait of music life, but then from a somewhat different pespective. There are plenty recordings devoted to Venetian music of the Renaissance, but they mostly focus on vocal music, either sacred music as performed in St Mark’s, or on madrigals by Venetian composers. Dance music is often included in anthologies, but here it receives more special attention. An important figure in the programme is Giovanni Bassano, who is almost exclusively known for his diminutions. Here we get to know another side of him, with four ricercares for a solo instrument, played by individual members of the ensemble. These are technically demanding, for instance due to wide leaps, and as they are included in his treatise of 1585, they had a pedagogical purpose.

They give the players of the ensemble feuervogel a nice opportunity to show their individual skills, which are impressive. Together they are responsible for excellent performances of a highly interesting and entertaining programme, which is a substantial addition to the discography of music in Venice. With Ian Harrison they have secured the collaboration of someone who knows everything about historical percussion.

This is a disc for repeated listening.

Johan van Veen

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Contents:
Giorgio Mainerio (1530/40-1582)
Passamezzo & Saltarello
[The marketplace of San Marco – a meeting place for cultures]
Giovanni Bassano (1551/52-1617)
Ricercar VI
Giorgio Mainerio
La Zanetta Padoana
Ungarescha
Tedescha
Schiarazula Marazula
Ballo Milanese
Claudio Merulo (1533-1604)
Canzon à 4 dita La Bovia
Philippe Verdelot (1480/85-1552)
Cor l’angelico riso
Girolamo Parabosco (1524-1557)
Fantasia Da pacem Domine
[The stage of the ballad-singers – jesters and improvisers]
Giovanni Bassano
Ricercar IV
Baldassare (Baldisserra) Donato (c1530-1603)
Chi la gagliarda
Francesco Bendusi (?-c1553)
Pass’e mezzo
Moschetta
Il stocco
Incognita
Gioia
Giovanni Bassano
Fantasia No. 1
Fabritio Caroso (1526/35-1605/20)
Barriera
[Venice’s noble ladies – wisdom and seduction]
Giovanni Bassano
Ricercar III
Giovanni Bassano
Non e ch’il duol (Rore)
Fabritio Caroso
Laura soave
Giovanni Bassano
Io canterei d’amore (Rore)
Fabritio Caroso
Celeste Giglio
Floriano Canale (c1575-1612)
Canzon La Stella
[Farewell to Venice – memories of the brilliant city]
Giovanni Bassano
Ricercar V
Anchor che col partire (Rore)
Adrian Willaert (c1490-1562)
Io amai sempre