Programma Hortus deliciarum laReverdie Concerto

Hortus deliciarum

Musical florilegium in France and Italy between Duecento and Trecento

3/4 singers and instrumentalists

The program proposed by laReverdie borrows the title of a treatise composed between 1167 and 1185 by Herrad von Landsberg, abbess of the Alsatian monastery of Hohenburg. Compiled for pedagogical purposes for the novices of the convent, the Hortus deliciarum is a rich compendium of the knowledge of the time, a sort of "encyclopedia" - the first we know written by a woman. Alongside topics of a theological and philosophical nature, Herrad pays so much attention to poetry and music, to include some musical compositions belonging to the conductus tradition, which can be reconstructed today thanks to the help of parallel sources.

Inspired by this extraordinary work of the female intellect and as an analogy with its encyclopedic character, our program aims to be an anthology of some of the most emblematic musical genres in use in France and Italy between the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century, a particularly lively era from the musical point of view for inventiveness, originality and search for new expressive languages.


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