Roberta Damiani - InCanto Barocco (2019)

The heart of the present recording project is made up of a selection of pieces referable to the so-called "second practice", the compositional method affirmed at the beginning of the seventeenth century that placed speech in a prominent position compared to music: most of these compositions are in fact taken from the collection "Scherzi Musicali" by Claudio Monteverdi. To these are added some of the best known songs composed by contemporary authors such as Giovanni Rovetta, Andrea Falconiero, Girolamo Frescobaldi and John Dowland, all sharing extremely popular themes in the collective imagination of the period such as love, religion and death, often connected to one another. The project has been completed with some instrumental compositions, that witness the first collections of songs played that were sent to be printed in Italy in the mid-seventeenth century. The execution of each piece is enriched by a constant dialogue between voices and instruments, a dialogue within which ample space is left for free improvisation, characterised, according to the use of the period, by the practice of diminutions.