Laudarium
Songs of Popular Devotion from 14th-Century Italy
Cortona, Biblioteca Comunale e dell’Accademia Etrusca, Ms 91
Firenze, Ms. Magliabechiano, BR 18
5/6 singers and instrumentalists
The program's conception aims to stress the esthetic and spiritual unity of the two surviving Laude manuscripts complete with music. This repertoire can be justly considered like sermons in music and verses: utilizing the meters and forms of popular poetry (for example, the Ballata), the Laudesi repertoire draws on the direct simplicity of popular theater, translating it into a religious language of powerful emotional force. The interpretation of laReverdie, the result of years of historical, linguistic, musicological, organological and theatrical research, intends (through the liberal use of vocal and instrumental improvisation) to explore the rich potentialities of this little-known repertoire at the moment of its greatest artistic splendor.