Banchieri Pazzia senile - Saviezza giovenile
A pair of knockabout musical plays performed with obvious relish, though much is left to the imagination
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Adriano Banchieri
Label: Stradivarius
Magazine Review Date: 2/2000
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 75
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: STR33518
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (La) Pazzia senile: ragionamenti vaghi, etdilettev |
Adriano Banchieri, Composer
Adriano Banchieri, Composer Delitiae Musicae Marco Longhini, Conductor |
| Saviezza Giovenile, 'Prudenza Giovenile' |
Adriano Banchieri, Composer
Adriano Banchieri, Composer Delitiae Musicae Marco Longhini, Conductor |
Author: Lindsay Kemp
Simply put, the madrigal comedy was a form in which a sequence of vocal ensemble pieces was linked by a rudimentary plot to make a kind of musical play. Usually based on characters from the commedia dell'arte, it flourished briefly in Italy at the end of the Renaissance before being blown away by the new-fangled and undoubtedly more realistic operas of Monteverdi et al, thereby joining the baryton, the broad-gauge railway and the Betamax video in the glorious company of good ideas which never quite caught on. Orazio Vecchi, the genre's initiator, invoked the theatre of the mind and advised against staging: his follower Adriano Banchieri, on the other hand, went to great lengths in his performance directions to explain just how a staging could be done, and it is presumably this precision which has fired Marco Longhini's imagination and led him to investigate the two lively examples recorded here.
Both works are knockabout affairs in which lecherous, avaricious and crotchety old Pantaloon characters are outwitted in their schemings by younger, handsomer folk (the titles translate as 'Senile Passion' and 'Youthful Wisdom' respectively). It gets no more sophisticated than that, though the story is adorned with a spoken narration, a resident fool, and a series of interludes in which assorted chimney sweeps, matchsellers and the like spread around some outrageously suggestive puns. If it sounds like fun, then it probably is if you could only get to see it. Certainly the singers and continuo players of Delitiae Musicae give the impression of enjoying themselves enormously, characterising the protagonists for all they are worth, and bravely relishing Banchieri's suggestion that the singers should switch between falsetto and normal voice for extra effect. CD listeners, however, will have to make do with Vecchi's exhortation to 'be silent, and instead of looking, listen', and while it is easy to picture the riotous goings-on in some renaissance palace, when all is said and done the music on its own has little to say for itself. A well-made and wonderfully evocative and illuminating release then, but not really one which is likely to sustain repeated listening.'
Both works are knockabout affairs in which lecherous, avaricious and crotchety old Pantaloon characters are outwitted in their schemings by younger, handsomer folk (the titles translate as 'Senile Passion' and 'Youthful Wisdom' respectively). It gets no more sophisticated than that, though the story is adorned with a spoken narration, a resident fool, and a series of interludes in which assorted chimney sweeps, matchsellers and the like spread around some outrageously suggestive puns. If it sounds like fun, then it probably is if you could only get to see it. Certainly the singers and continuo players of Delitiae Musicae give the impression of enjoying themselves enormously, characterising the protagonists for all they are worth, and bravely relishing Banchieri's suggestion that the singers should switch between falsetto and normal voice for extra effect. CD listeners, however, will have to make do with Vecchi's exhortation to 'be silent, and instead of looking, listen', and while it is easy to picture the riotous goings-on in some renaissance palace, when all is said and done the music on its own has little to say for itself. A well-made and wonderfully evocative and illuminating release then, but not really one which is likely to sustain repeated listening.'
Banchieri Pazzia senile - Saviezza giovenile
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