Roberta Mameli - Luzzaschi: Madrigali … per cantare et sonare a uno, e doi, e tre soprani (2011)

Having moved forward in time if not in terms of original place of production – by following the Poppea of Monteverdi with the Artemisia of Francesco Cavalli – Claudio Cavina and La Venexiana now return to the end of the 16th century, for what is a fresh, new and distinctively Italian take on what was, for a long time, “secret” music: that composed by Luzzasco Luzzaschi when he was serving the ducal court of Alfonso II of Ferrara. Alfonso had brought together “singing ladies”, the Concerto delle Dame, virtuoso performers on instruments as well as with the voice, to delight and entertain the duke’s wife as well as privileged members of the court (rival courts apparently sent composer- “emissaries” to find out what was going on!). Kept under lock and key the music written for the Dame by Luzzaschi and others was only released and published on the Duke’s death. No less a musician searching after theoretical supports for composition as was the case with Claudio Monteverdi, was greatly impressed, when he was deliberating over the seconda pratica, with Luzzaschi’s modern handling of the madrigal form, and the Ferrara composer’s keyboard skills were also hugely admired by other contemporaries.

In Emanuela Galli, Roberta Mameli (the Artemia in Cavalli’s Artemisia) and Francesca Cassinari, Claudio Cavina has assembled a superb modern-day trio of singers ready to bring out all the subtleties and nuances of music and words in a further display of La Venexiana’s magisterial control of Italian music as it shifts gears from the Renaissance to the Baroque. In his booklet essay Stefano Russomanno provides detailed insight into the background surrounding the mystery of this musica secreta.