Abel Domingues - Odi Euterpe: Italian Monody From the Early 17th Century (2010)

Seldom ever have ‘new musics’ demonstrated the freshness and boldness as shown at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1602 Giulio Caccini proposed, in the essay prefacing his Le Nuove Musiche, a new relationship between music and text; this could be summed up in the term sprezzatura, according to which the text moves to a primary position of importance. In combination with the emergent basso continuo, Caccini thus sowed the seed for the startling development of vocal genres in subsequent centuries.

This recording presents various facets of the new vocal art, beginning with works by Caccini himself, moving via stylish composers such as Girolamo Frescobaldi or the madrigalian miracles of Sigismondo d’India to exhilarating works by the poet-composer Benedetto Ferrari, active in Venice and Vienna in the middle of the 17th century.

Rosa Domínguez interprets these works placing special emphasis on the text, prominently and enthusiastically stressing the ‘I’ of these poetic creations, generally the victim of amorous sufferings. The plentiful stanzas of these songs, dressed by an extremely flexible and imaginative basso continuo permit the telling of complete stories. By utilizing a limited means of support (just the two plucked strings instruments), the full deployment of vocal expressivity is encouraged, bringing into existence as a result new musical spaces in the line of what was imagined by Caccini and his ‘nuove musiche’.