A Thousand Flexible Ways

The early decades of the Italian Seicento were astonishingly fruitful for the arts, and for music in particular: the emergence and refinement of Monteverdi’s ‘seconda pratica’ opened up a new realm of expressive possibilities, which composers were quick to take advantage of. The elegance and proportion of the previous century began to be coloured by a new zest for meraviglia (‘wonder, astonishment’), from which instrumentalists and singers alike benefited. One of the writers who attempted to capture these concepts was Emanuele Tesauro, whose Vocabolario (really more of a philosophical encyclopedia than a mere dictionary) includes an evocative description of a sweetly ornamenting voice, twisting and turning in ‘a thousand flexible ways’.

We explore this territory with voice, violin, and lute. Inspired by the perennial advice for instrumentalists to model their playing on the execution of good singers, the violin takes the role of a second voice in several works, including Monteverdi’s iconic ciaccona ‘Zefiro torna’. The emerging instrumental styles are showcased in works by Marini and Kapsberger, and the solo voice runs the gamut of expressive styles, with Merula’s heart-rending lullaby to the infant Christ, painfully cognisant of his destiny, as one of the highlights.

Oliver Webber violin
Hannah Ely soprano
Toby Carr lute, theorbo