Event

La Gerusalemme Liberata

Published in 1581, Torquato Tasso's epic poem 'La Gerusalemme Liberata' (Jerusalem Delivered) became one of the most widely read literary works of its time, inspiring countless paintings, madrigals and operas. Set during the Crusades, Tasso created a vivid world including elements of fantasy as well as a cast of extremely memorable characters. Its suitability for musical treatment is obvious, and easily demonstrated by the vast number of musicians who used its text for various songs and madrigals, and for opera plots. Among the many composers who were inspired to set passages of 'Gerusalemme' to music, Monteverdi used the episode with the two lovers Tancredi and Clorinda to create what is essentially a short opera scene, a splendid and concise example of the new 'genere rappresentativo'. Featuring three characters -- a narrator and the two battling lovers -- Monteverdi's treatment allegedly brought its first audience, the Gonzaga family of Mantua, to tears. Also in the city of Mantua, the great Flemish madrigalist Wert set an entire cycle of Tasso's stanzas as polyphonic five-part madrigals. Like Monteverdi's 'scena', many of these are also highly rhetorical in style, and lend themselves to a variety of performance possibilities, such as the inclusion of instruments and performance as 'proto-monody,' many of which Tesserae will explore in this concert. Other settings to be performed will include madrigals by Maurenzio and Pallavicino, as well sinfonie from 'Erminia sul giordano', an opera by the avant-garde Roman composer Michelangelo Rossi.