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Songs of the CloistersVirtuoso Music from 17th-Century Italian NunneriesAn intriguing programme of recently unearthed vocal and instrumental music of the 16th and 17th century, much of it written behind convent walls where both composition and performance were officially forbidden. An early example of the women’s movement, expressed through the power of music, this music also reveals these extraordinarily beautiful works, often written in secret, and in many cases now being heard for the first time since they were first created. Cappella Artemisia
Tickets for this performance at $35 (students & seniors $3 discount) can be ordered on-line via our secure connection. They can also be ordered by phone (604 732-1610) from the office of Early Music Vancouver. Tickets are also available at Sikora’s Classical Records. Rush Seats for Students with valid ID on sale for $10, at the door only, from 7:00 pm on the evening of the concert. These concerts are included in our “Bring a Youth for Free” programme.
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Sulpitia Cesis (1577-???): Raphaella Aleotti (1570-1646): Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1584): Lucrezia Orsina Vizana: Maria Xaveria Perucona (1652-1709): Bianca Maria Meda (1665-???): Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1676): i n t e r v a l Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1676): Sisto Reina: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) / Aquilino Coppini (???-1629): Alba Tressina (1622-???): Giulio Cesare Arresti (1619-1701): Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704):
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Descriptions like this provide images of a fabulous musical world inhabited by women – singers, players and even composers. And yet draconian restrictions governed virtually every aspect of these women's lives, and especially on their music. Moreover, a veil of mystery surrounds this repertoire: the music written for and by these cloistered nuns often includes parts for tenors and basses? How was this music performed? This concert will attempt to provide some answers to this fascinating question. Convent life represented virtually the only honourable choice for women outside of marriage, and many young Italian girls inhabited the monasteries. Music was practiced there every day for it literally represented their voice in the outside world, and its excellent quality drew hoards of listeners from throughout Europe. Church authorities took a dim view of these blasphemous “tourist attractions”, considering music to be one of the most impelling dangers to the spiritual wellbeing of the nuns. Rules strictly limited or even prohibited certain types of music, the use of most musical instruments, and instruction by outside music teachers. Yet an enormous wealth of music was either dedicated to, written by, or referred to nuns. The nuns resorted to various solutions to supplant the absence of men's voices. Despite all official restrictions, musical instruments were widely used in the convents (including the trombone!), to play the bass lines. Singers are also described with "singular and amazing" bass voices, and bass and tenor lines or even entire pieces could be transposed upward to fit a woman's vocal range. In Milan, the convent most renowned for its music was undoubtedly Santa Radegonda, home to Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. She, like other composers in and out of the convent, set many of her pieces to verse from the Song of Songs, which despite being biblical, were considered to “racy” for some church authorities. The most prolific of all women composers in the 17th century was the Ursuline nun, Isabella Leonarda, who published more than 100 works. It is interesting to note that the Ursulines were the only nuns who did not have to be cloistered. Who knows if their relative freedom allowed them more artistic freedom as well? Finally, in the Bologna, many composers dedicated their works to the nuns of Santa Cristina, which was also home to the only nun there to have published her music: Donna Lucretia Orsina Vizzana. The nuns of this convent openly rebelled against the rules restricting their music, but were finally forced to surrender under pain of excommunication. Tragically, Vizzana herself went mad, and died after 65 years in the convent.
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Cappella Artemisia
Founded in Bologna, Italy, in 1991, Cappella Artemisia is a ten-member ensemble of 6 women’s voices, with two cornetti, organ and viola da gamba. This is “early music” with a difference. They not only present a feast of glorious and rarely heard music. With an informative and illuminating commentary, they also open a social and historical window onto the women’s movement of an earlier era. Since its inception the ensemble has received critical and popular praise, both for the rarity and originality of its repertoire, and for the high quality of its performances. Cappella Artemisia has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Festival of Flanders, The Holland Festival of Early Music, Il Festival Monteverdiano di Cremona, the Osterfestival in Innsbruck, the WDR Festival der Alten Musik in Herne, the Tage Alter Musik in Regensburg, and I Concerti al Quirinale (Rome). They have been broadcast by national radio networks in Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the USA. Now for the first time, they undertake a major Canadian tour. Cappella Artemisia takes its name from the painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, a striking female figure in the 17th-century Italian art world whose accomplishments - like the convent-inspired music that paralleled her life - are only now beginning to be recognized. |
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From the 16th and 17th century Italian musical world of Monteverdi and Palestrina; from the schools made famous by Vivaldi one hundred years later, Cappella Artemisia explores a musical world inhabited by composers and performers whose forbidden music until recently was hidden behind cloistered walls.