Composer: Alessandro Grandi
Performer: Accademia d’Arcadia, UtFaSol Ensemble
Conductor: Alessandra Rossi
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Arcana
Release: 2019
Size: 1.04 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. O quam tu pulchra es
02. Plorabo
03. Lilia
04. In semita
05. O bone Jesu
06. Date nomini ejus
07. Heu mihi
08. Salvum fac
09. Bone Jesu verbum Patris
10. Domine ne in furore tuo
11. Surge propera
12. Factum est silentium
13. Vidi spetiosam
14. Veniat dilectus meus
15. Nisi Dominus
Accademia d’Arcadia:
Laura Martinez Boj: cantus
Alice Rossi: cantus
Maximiliano Baños: altus
Sophia Patsi: altus
Roberto Rilievi: tenor
Riccardo Pisani: tenor
Leo Moreno: tenor
Renato Cadel: bassus
Alessandro Ravasio: bassus
Giovanni Bellini: theorbo
Luigi Accardo: organ
UtFaSol Ensemble:
Pietro Modesti: cornetto I
Jedediah Allen: cornetto II
Fabio De Cataldo: tenor sackbut
Susanna Defendi: tenor sackbut
Valerio Mazzucconi: bass sackbut
Alessandra Rossi Lürig: conductor
Alessandro Grandi (born in Venice in 1590), regarded by scholars as “the greatest motet composer of his time”, was a prominent figure of the new Venetian style in the first half of the seventeenth century. An extremely precocious talent, he was considered by his contemporaries equal to Claudio Monteverdi, to whom he was appointed deputy in 1627 in Saint Mark’s Basilica. Yet our knowledge of his life and musical output is scanty, and thus he has remained mostly undiscovered. “Celesti fiori” (celestial flowers), a title taken from his Fifth Book of Motets, is the first complete monograph recording dedicated to this important composer. It consists of a selection of works, almost all recorded here for the first time, chosen from his books of motets, all published between 1610 and 1630, the year in which he was killed by the plague, along with his large family. Recorded in the extraordinary acoustics of the Basilica di Santa Barbara in Mantua, where Monteverdi worked during his long stay in the city, this project features the splendid voices of the Accademia d’Arcadia, an ensemble recently founded in 2018 for the purpose of performing Italian music of the seventeenth century.