CD Musica a Firenze: Die Zeit Lorenzos des Prächtigen (1449-1492). The Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Insieme Vocale e Strumentale »L’Homme Armé«, Fabio Lombardo, Christophorus Digital 77132 (Heidelberg: Collection Europa, a Florence International Production srl worldwide licensed by MusiContact GmbH, © 1993)
“The performance of the group ‘L’homme armé’…is philologically credible on the basis of historical research by the director Fabio Lombardo and by Anthony Cummings, who also wrote the liner notes for the CD….” [three stars]
Emilio Gavezzotti
“Interpretation: Optimal – Exceptional….The explanatory notes, deft and detailed, are by Anthony Cummings.”
Alberto Batisti, CD Musica
“[T]he disc is the fruit of a work of scholarship completed by Anthony Cummings, Gian Luca Lastraioli, and Fabio Lombardo….The intelligence of the choices is reflected in the body of the recording, which comprises the most representative pieces of the secular, liturgical, and celebratory repertory composed by musicians close to the House of Medici.”
La gazzetta di Firenze
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collaborated with co-founders and co-artistic directors Michal Gondko and Corina Marti on the CD The Lion’s Ear. A Tribute to Leo X, Musician among Popes. La Morra. Ramée Ram 1403 (n.p. [Brussels, Cologne, Paris]: Outhere, Ⓟ & © 2015)
♦ winner, Noah Greenberg Award, American Musicological Society; «Diapason d’Or», from the French audiofile magazine Diapason
♦ reviews in magazines and scholarly journals: http://www.lamorra.info/recordings/the-lions-ear and https://outhere-music.com/en/albums/lions-ear
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Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 o Francesco Corti o «La Morra», Michal Gondko and Corina Marti, co-directors o «Theatro dei Cervelli», Andrés Locatelli, director, 2 CDs, Ramée (Brussels and Paris: Outhere Music, © 2024)
reviews in the following journals:
Arts libre
BBC Radio 3 Record Review
Corriere della Sera
Cultuurpakt
Diapason
Gramophone
Musik an sich
Qobuz Rediscover Music
Radio Kraków Kultura
ResMusica. musique classique et danse
Revista Scherzo
Rivista musica
Stretto – Magazine voor kunst, geschiedenis, filosofie, literatuur en muziek
Titus Curiosus
“The musical range is…absolutely huge. It covers all different types of genres, from liturgical music through to theatrical music and everything in between….[W]e’ve composers…you would expect: Peri, Marenzio…but…[t]here’s so much variety on this, over such a long historical period, and so many different genres….[T]he quality is very good across the disc, and it is very varied….[I]t is quite a sumptuous recording….[A]n enormous amount of ground to cover….[R]eally lovely….[T]he [accompanying] book will deeply enrich your engagement [with] and understanding of the music, but the two discs work beautifully just as [is]….The [CD liner] notes are just what you need….[Y]ou can enjoy the recordings for what they are, and they’re very beautiful and very varied, but…the book will deeply enrich your engagement with the music.”
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“Hear the sounds that Florence made,” Corriere della Sera (17 March 2024):
“Now listeners, too, can immerse themselves in the principal contributions of Florence to the history of music (the Renaissance madrigal, opera, the piano). Linked to the study by Anthony M. Cummings, Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 (University of Chicago Press, 2023), the identically-entitled double disc (Ramée/Outhere) has arrived: 49 tracks entrusted to the ensembles La Morra and Theatro dei Cervelli and to mæstro Francesco Corti.”
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Michel Dutrieue, Stretto – Magazine voor kunst, geschiedenis, filosofie, literatuur en muziek:
“This sublime recording, which provides an overview of the most important surviving musical genres in Florence in the half millennium between c. 1250 and c. 1750, aims to provide a musical description of the extraordinary musical culture, which was of unparalleled importance in the golden age of Florence. The program on this sublime double CD was inspired by the beautiful book of the same name Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London 2023) by Anthony M. Cummings. / This double CD immerses you in the soundscape of late medieval and early modern Florence. Despite Florence’s prominent place in art history, Florence’s importance in music history is not as well known as it should be. Florence was not only the city of Dante, Machiavelli, Michelangelo[,] and Galileo Galilei, but also the birthplace of the Renaissance madrigal,…opera[,]…and even…the piano. / Music in Golden Age Florence, 1250-1750 chronicles Florence’s major contributions to music and the history of how music was heard and cultivated in the city, from civic and religious institutions to private patronage and the academies. This book and double CD are a valuable addition to research into the art, literature[,] and political thought of the late medieval and early modern eras and the quasi-legendary figures in the Florentine cultural pantheon.”
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Cultuurpakt (6 March 2024):
“This double album accompanies Anthony M. Cummings’ book of the same name, Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London 2023). They are designed to enable readers and listeners to enter the sound world of late medieval and early modern Florence. Despite the enviable place that Florence occupies in the historical imagination, its music-historical importance is not as well understood as it should be. / But if Florence was the city of Dante Alighieri, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti[,] and Galileo Galilei, it was also the birthplace of the madrigal,…opera[,] and the piano….Firenze, the art city and cultural metropolis of medieval Italy par excellence. Painting, sculpture[,] and architecture abounded there. And therefore also music. Instrumental music, vocal music, something for everyone in this recording…. / A historical overview of music in Florence from 1250 to 1750. A testimony from the cradle of polyphony and Renaissance,…the madrigal to the Baroque. A place where artists and musicians from all over Europe traveled to gain inspiration and influence…art….A virtuoso journey through history. Also read the book!”
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George Henkel, Musik an sich CCLXXI (1 March 2024):
“The perception of Florence as not only an important art[- ,] but also a music[- ,] metropolis falls somewhat behind that of Venice, Rome[,] and Naples. This city[-]state has provided important impulses for the development of music,…whether it be in the genre of the madrigal, early opera[,] or music for keyboard….This production…aims to document the music-historical significance of Florence as part of a multimedia project. The 49 tracks on this double CD accompany a book by Anthony M. Cummings…: Music in…Golden[-]Age Florence, 1250 to 1750. 500 years of music history are rapidly traversed on two CDs…and…commented on…in the booklet, which offers sufficient orientation even without the more comprehensive book….Such a condensed program…is ambitious. Nevertheless, the present documentation seems surprisingly coherent….In addition, the historically[-]informed performance by two renowned ensembles – La Morra and Theatro dei Cervelli – as well as by an expert on historical keyboard instruments – Francesco Corti – ensures a high, integrating level. We are…increasingly encountering ambitious works for keyboard instruments…The main representative is Domenico Zipoli, who is well looked[-]after by Francesco Corti. The same applies to the performances of medieval and early[-]Renaissance music by La Morra and…the Baroque pieces by…Theatro dei Cervelli.”
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Camille De Rijck, Arts libre XXXVI (28 February 2024):
“The history of Florence seems to be made of cobblestones, bricks, marbles[,] and paintings. But where is the music?…[I]t is there, as discreet within its walls as…other forms of art are vivid. Here is a very learned volume, which aims to restore the place occupied by the city of the Medici in the musical map….[T]he medievalists of the La Morra ensemble,…organist Francesco Corti[…,] and the musicians of…Theatro dei Cervelli chronologically paint an unbounded fresco, which one enters like a museum.”
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Qobuz Rediscover Music – “ALBUM REVIEW“:
Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750 accompanies a book by musicologist Anthony [Cummings] of the same title. Yet it is of general interest as well, as shown by the album’s appearance on classical best-seller lists in early 2023. [Cummings’s] aim is to elevate the musical contributions of Florence to the same level enjoyed by its artistic and literary productions. The value of his musical selections is twofold. First, he introduces to listeners a great many composers they may not know. Second, he catches international styles as they wash over a specific city in a unique way. The album has four sections, devoted respectively to the late Middle Ages, the early and late Renaissance, and the Baroque. Each of these is mostly the province of one of the three groups present: the early music vocal-instrumental group La Morra, the late Renaissance ensemble Theatro dei Cervelli, and the pianist Francesco Corti. All are more than competent. Corti plays some little-known Baroque keyboard music from Florence, much of it anonymous, that may be the biggest find here; works such as the Pastorale mezza bigia of Francesco Feroci have a unique lyricism even if one might argue that by 1750, Florence was past its “golden age.” Not all the music is Florentine; as Franco-Flemish polyphony came to rule Europe, Florence was no exception, and such composers as Heinrich Isaac and Alexander Agricola are included. No doubt, readers of the book will gain more insight into the issues involved, but [Cummings’s] own booklet offers a useful taste. The album will be of great value to museum programmers looking to present music associated with their collections of Florentine art, and it will appeal to anyone who has been fascinated by the jewel of Tuscany.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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“Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 ***** ”, Diapason:
“To illustrate five centuries of music in Florence is the objective of this double album, designed to accompany the identically-entitled book by Anthony M. Cummings (University of Chicago Press, 2023), to which the notes make multiple references. Two ensembles – «La Morra» for the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, «Theatro dei Cervelli» until the beginning of the Seicento – and the keyboardist Francesco Corti share a program favoring new releases and rarities….«La Morra» opens the festivities and spans three centuries in sixteen tracks, from which the intabulations stand out (the dance La Manfredina and In mijnem sin of Agricola)….Madrigals and the famous intermedij of La Pellegrina take us to Theatro dei Cervelli. The ensemble lacks neither qualities of opulence (Mentre con mill’amori by Luca Bati) nor of intimacy (the stunning ‘Aria di Romanesca’ Io parto lasso by Giovanni Pietro Bucchianti!)….From Brunelli…we will remember the Cantate Domino, which…suits the ensemble….A gem: the eight-voice madrigal by Marco da Gagliano,Sull’affricane arena, designed to celebrate the military victories of Cosimo II in Africa. Whether on the organ or the harpsichord, Francesco Corti will secure everyone’s agreement. He enhances the keyboard pages of Peri (Ricercar del primo tuono del Zazzerino!), Malvezzi, [and] the different versions of the Aria di Firenze, and closes the panorama with three anonymous pieces from the beginning of the 18th century, full of poetry and movement (Preludio cantabile). Organ extracts from Domenico Zipoli’s Sonate d’intavolatura per organo e cimbalo complete the ensemble. This brilliant ending in the form of a recital is, in and of itself, worth the detour.”
Frederic Degroote
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Radio Kraków Kultura:
“Last year, a book entitled ‘Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750’ by Anthony M. Cummings was published. While the researcher himself undertook an almost impossible task – how to describe half a millennium of intense musical activity in such an important center – a book without musical illustrations is, however, only a part of this titanic project. At the beginning of 2024, this gap will be filled by the Ramée label, which has invited the ensembles La Morra and Theatro dei Cervelli and the outstanding organist and harpsichordist Francesco Corti to record a double album dedicated to ‘the most provocative Italian city,’ as historian Sir John Rigby Hale described it. The result is a concise summa of musical experiments, covering the times from the late Middle Ages to the first half of the 18th century, of which there was no shortage in Florence, the homeland of the madrigal and opera. The musicians take the listener on a winding and demanding journey through the centuries, the only drawback of which is… time. It turns out that two discs are definitely not enough to show the abundance of artistic ideas of the capital of Tuscany.”
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ResMusica. musique classique et danse, “Musical Splendors in Florence from the Middle Ages to the Baroque by La Morra and Theatro dei Cervelli,” 20 April 2024, Frédéric Muñoz
“…the ideal sonic reflection….luminous and varied anthology, a fascinating journey through time….Five centuries of music are…suggested and represented in a grand evocation,…Two ensembles nourish this program with the most refined vocal and orchestral sounds. Sound capture in two distinct acoustics brings variety to the ambiences, which makes listening soothing….a reference anthology in the knowledge of the Florentine musical universe. The inspired and dazzling direction of Corina Marti, Michal Gondko and Andrés Locatelli make this album a great success.”
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Francis Lippa, “History, Music, Unclassified,” Titus Curiosus (Wednesday April 3, 2024)
…[O]n p. 94 of n. 732 of Diapason magazine for April 2024, critic Frédéric Degroote rightly comments on this exciting, certainly-striking double Ramée CD, and…not only…the harpsichord and organ tracks that Francesco Corti plays….What a great pleasure indeed to find here such notable composers as…
- Luca Marenzio (1553/54-1599), in “Se nelle voci nostre,”
- Philippe Verdelot (c. 1480/85-1530/32), in “Si bona suscepimus,”
- Emilio de’ Cavalieri (c. 1550-1602), in “Godi turba mortal,”
- Marco da Gagliano (1582-1643), in “Sull’affricane arena,” or
- Domenico Zipoli (1688-1726), in, for example, “Canzona,”
…all, of course, having some connection to music in (and for) Florence between 1250 and 1750, as explored in Anthony M. Cummings’ important book Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750. From the Priorate of the Guilds to the End of the Medici Grand Duchy, published by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, in 2023.
Listen here to…
- the Aria di Fiorenza, by Girolamo Frescobaldi (lasting 2’57), or
- the Aria di Fiorenza by Giovanni-Battista Ferrini (4’02), on harpsichord, or, instead,
- the Ricercar del Primo Tuono del Zazzerino, by Jacopo Peri (4’01 [minutes in length]),on the organ at Cortona, by this prodigious musician-magician that is Francesco Corti.
But it is – …I insist… – this entire double CD, Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750,…162 [minutes in length], that is absolutely fascinating.
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MUSIC IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF FLORENCE (1250-1750) o Anthology
Mariano Acero Ruilopez, Revista Scherzo
Medieval: works by Gherardello da Firenze, Francesco Landino, Andrea da Firenze, [and] anonymous;
Early Renaissance: works by John Bedyngham, Pietrequin Bonnel, Alexander Agricola, Heinrich Isaac, Paulus Scotus, Giovanni Serragli, [and] anonymous;
High Renaissance: works by Francesco Corteccia, Jacopo Peri, Cristofano Malvezzi, Alessandro Striggio, Serafino Razzi, Luca Marenzio, Emilio de’ Cavalieri, [and] Philippe Verdelot; [and]
Baroque: works by Giovanni Paolo Foscarini, Antonio Brunelli, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Pietro Bucchianti, Giovanni Battista Ferrini, Domenico Anglesi, Marco da Gagliano, Domenico Zipoli, [and] Franceso Feroci
La Morra (Corina Marti and Michał Gondko, directors); Theatro dei Cervelli (Andrés Locatelli, director); [and] Francesco Corti, harpsichord and organ ⋅ RAMEE (2 CD)
The double disc that is the subject of this review is not a standard commercial disc. This anthology is conceived as a complement to an important academic work recently published, [one] with the same title, by professor and musicologist Anthony M. Cummings (University of Chicago Press, 2023). An emblematic city and pioneer in European civilization from so many points of view, Florence also treasures a rich musical tradition, which – combining secondary literature and unpublished archival sources – [Cummings] resolves to present systematically.
Three initiatives were undertaken in which musical Florence was particularly pioneering: the madrigal, opera[,] and the piano, which sooner or later were disseminated throughout Europe (the piano was late in coming). Over such a very long period, an extreme selection of musical examples was inevitable (and its detailed presentation impossible), but we see that a balance has been sought — and, we believe, achieved — between well-known and other less-commonly-interpreted works, including not being available on disc.
And what is fundamental to getting the sonic project to a good “harbor” is contacting first-rank interpreters. The group La Morra, co-conducted by Corina Marti and Michal Gondko, focuses fundamentally on medieval music — devotional, ecclesiastical, private[,] and lay. Theatro dei Cervelli, conducted by tenor Andrés Locatelli, performs elegiac examples of the late Renaissance, and new Baroque music. And finally, Francesco Corti is responsible for the excerpts for organ and keyboard (there is no piano, however).
[Even] when linked to a larger project, the double disc has its own entity; the anthology — various, surprising, and, as always, incomplete — is very representative, offering novelties and wonderful interpretations….>>
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Lorenzo Tozzi, Rivista musica – 5 stars
A truly titanic undertaking, to represent a city like Florence musically over the span of half a millennium. And how adventurous a synergy it undertook between Theatro dei Cervelli, directed by Andrés Locatelli, and La Morra, directed by Corina Marti and Michał Gondko, a necessary synergy given the stylistic differences among the works examined and performed on the two Ramee CDs. In fact, we move from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance (first CD) to the Baroque (second), uniting in a diachronic itinerary for the first time the Florentine Ars Nova of the fourteenth century (Landini, the “blind man of the organs”) and the Flemings Verdelot, Isaac, Agricola, for example, with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Marco da Gagliano, Frescobaldi, Cavalieri, Striggio, Corteccia, [and] Malvezzi), all composers who also held top rôles at the Medici court, such as Malvezzi and Cavalieri, who presided over the performances of the refined Florentine court. And the novelty of this discography offered is that of not having fixed attention on a single period, but having undertaken – albeit from a bird’s eye view – to trace a continuity: a unitary – albeit extremely varied – musical journey in the city of Dante. Inevitably, some names are missing, such as that of Francesca Caccini or Alessandro Scarlatti, whose presence in Florence and at the Medici villas was certainly not secondary, and it is truly praiseworthy to have managed to cover the entire span of five centuries, from the austere Middle Ages of the cantus planus to polyphony, from monody to instrumental music, from sacred to secular expression. An extraordinary parade of musical forms – antiphons, spiritual laude, motets, madrigals, the inevitable carnival songs, frottole, ballets, masquerades, dances, passacaglias, pastorals, salterelli, ricercari, intermedij (in particular those for the Pellegrina of Bargagli of 1589 for the wedding of [Grand Duke] Ferdinand I [de’ Medici] with Christina of Lorraine)[,] and even a collection of Arie di Fiorenza – in a continuous change of styles and sounds. And it happily surprises, since despite the huge variety of styles and performance practices, the two ensembles employed here always succeed in capturing authenticity. The often illustrious texts by Sodanieri, Petrarca, Savonarola, Rinuccini[,] or often-anonymous [poets] are interpreted by [both] well-known and lesser-known composers: almost an acoustical backdrop to the history of a unique capital like the “City of the Fleur-de-Lis,” often musically underestimated and remembered above all for the pioneering birth of opera by the Camerate. Among the fifty recorded pieces, those by Antonio Brunelli – organist in San Miniato and Prato and friend of Caccini – and Domenico Zipoli – from Prato, and pupil of Scarlatti in Naples – stand out numerically. The laudable effort is a reward in itself and provides an excellent service to the city of Michelangelo, Dante[,] and Machiavelli, but also of the Paduan Bartolomeo Cristofori, the inventor of the harpsichord “with piano and forte” [i.e., the piano], punctilious lute and harpsichord maker of the Medici.
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Gramophone Magazine:
“Music in Golden-Age Florence 1250-1750 aims to encompass Florentine musical culture from the Republican priorate of trade guilds in the late Middle Ages to the fading embers of the Medici dynasty. The earliest repertoire is performed captivatingly by La Morra’s shifting combinations of five male voices, recorders, organetto, fiddle, medieval and Renaissance lutes[,] and harpsichord….Sacred and secular musical spheres in Cinquecento Florence are juxtaposed by Theatro dei Cervelli’s squad of 13 singers, recorder, violins, two theorbos, viola da gamba[,] and two keyboardists. The vocal ensemble has polished refinement in Corteccia’s Sacerdos et pontifex (an antiphon for the ceremonial arrival of Florence’s new archbishop in 1567) and Malvezzi’s setting of Petrarch’s I’ vo piangendo i miei passati tempi, whereas coarser gutsiness is applied to Razzi’s folk-dialect Stabat mater….Throughout the ambitious collaborative project…this revelatory treasure trove is put together impeccably.”