EN SE DE
  • “At the end of the Renaissance, at a time when contrapuntal forms were at the high level of sophistication and complexity, a new practice emerged: the solo song, accompained by a single instrument. The leutenists of the sixteenth century were already able to arrange madrigals and other polyphonic pieces into versions for solo voice with lute accompaniment, or complete intabulations for solo lute. [...] The concept of recitar cantando (later named stile recitativo) was introduced by musicians, artists, philosophers and nobles who were part of Count Bardi’s Florentine Camerata during the late sixteenth century. [...] In recitar cantando [...] music is completely at the service of the text, enabling it to act on the psychology and the mind of the listeners. [...] The symbol of this new style was the kitharode, the poet-musician of ancient Greece who sang and accompanied himself only with his kithara. [...] At the end of the early Baroque, around 1640, composers of recitar cantando such as Domenico Mazzocchi, Giacomo Carissimi, Barbara Strozzi e Benedetto Ferrari, contributed to the development of recitative, the arioso, the aria, and finally the cantata in its final form with its alternation of recitative and aria”

    Recording 96Khz/24bit