Like technological change, innovation and experimentation throughout the centuries is equally observable in all areas of human endeavour. In 17th century Italy, experimentation and inquiry was flourishing in the sciences and visual arts. This fascination with novel insights and techniques was paralleled in the musical world where there was a remarkable shift in how instrumental music was composed, played, and listened to.

This “stile moderno,” or modern style, was a new phenomenon in which musical instruments leapt into a world of their own, and where composers and performers exploited each instruments’ unique characteristics and possibilities. In previous decades compositions could be performed with some instrumental flexibility; played by strings, winds, keyboards or a mix of these, depending on what was at hand, and frequently with the goal of imitating the human voice.

While the relationship with vocal music remained robust, exploring the ways in which instruments could (without text) move the “affeti”, or the emotions of the listener was new territory to explore in the early 17th century. Through metrical flexibility and an adventurous compositional attitude, Italian composers of this period broke new ground with highly idiomatic writing whose influence was felt throughout Europe.

In today’s program, all of the composers were also renowned organists, violinists, or both. Girolamo Frescobaldi’s collections of printed music were enormously influential in the late Renaissance and early baroque periods, and the harpsichord solo is an enchanting example of stile moderno. with its visionary and adventurous improvisatory musical language.

Arcangelo Corelli, the latest composer on the programme, was revered in his home country and elsewhere in Europe, and known in his time as the “new Orpheus”. His music was widely played, copied and transcribed well into the 18th century. The Sonata #5 for viola da gamba is from an anonymous transcription of Corelli’s Op. 5 violin sonatas for viola da gamba and is transposed from the original g minor to d minor.

​

Natalie Mackie