La Decima Musa, or The Tenth Muse

Musica Antica Rotherhithe presents music by Francesco Cavalli, Barbara Strozzi, Francesco Lucio, PA Ziani and Giovanni Legrenzi – much of it unheard for 370 years – from the golden age of Venetian opera.

Using surviving payment records from Venetian theatres c. 1651 - 1668, the ensemble will match that which you might have seen in an orchestra pit in Venice during the 1650s: two violins, a bass violin, a harpsichord, a pentagonal virginal, and up to three theorbos. Using a wealth of historical music treatises, many aspects of their playing, from continuo realisation to ornamentation, attempt to match the sound you might have heard as closely as possible.

Musica Antica recorded this programme as La Decima Musa: Music from the golden age of Venetian opera 1650-1660 in December 2025, thanks to the generosity of individual supporters, the Orbis Pictus Foundation, and Angel Early Music. This first tour of the programme is made possible by Continuo Foundation.