Latest Posts from Magnificat's Blog

The Magnificat Blog includes news about our concerts
and the music we perform along with articles
about the art and culture of the 17th Century

• Anne Kingswell Finch – ‘Versifying’ Librettist of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis 07/17/2010
  For 300 years, the libretto for the earliest surviving opera in English, John Blow’s masterful setting of the classic tale of Venus and Adonis, has been assigned to the oeuvre of the remarkably prolific ‘Anonymous’. However, English Literature scholar James Winn has recently argued persuasively that the graceful and elegant re-casting of Ovid rife with parody and often gently sarcastic commentary on the manors of the court of Charles II, is in fact the work of Anne Kingswell, later Finch, who was a maid in honor of the Duchess of York, Marie of Modena at the time when Blow’s ‘entertainment for the King’ was written and performed.
  Magnificat
• Magnificat’s 19th Season – Giving Voice to the Human Spirit 07/14/2010
  The programs on Magnificat’s 19th season reflect the confidence and imagination of this time from four different perspectives: the introduction of opera in England, the melding of “pop” music with the refined elegance of the French court, the virtuosity of four remarkable women, and satirical reflections on the human condition told through the characters of the commedia dell’arte.
  Magnificat
• Berkeley Festival Memories 07/13/2010
  A month has past since the Berkeley Festival, but the marvelous sounds of Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Cozzolani, Strozzi, and all the others remain fresh. The soaring melodies, bright colors and stinging dissonances in my head are accompanied by fond memories of the extraordinary atmosphere of the Festival, especially on the sunny Sunday afternoon when all the main stage ensembles joined together to celebrate the remarkable music of Seicento Venice.
  Warren Stewart
• The Original Partbooks of Cozzolani’s Salmi a Otto voci 07/12/2010
  The Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in Bologna is like mecca for scholars of 17th century music. It houses the collection of the renowned 18th century composer, teacher and scholar Giovanni Battista Martini, known as 'Padre Martini'. Most of his massive collection of music prints (estimated by Dr. Burney at over 17,000 volumes) was donated to the Civico Museo on his death.
  Warren Stewart
• Cozzolani Project Releases Psalm 110: Confitebor tibi Domine 06/03/2010
  Magnificat and Musica Omnia have released another track from the first volume of Cozzolani’s complete works. With the release of Confitebor tibi Domine, all of Cozzolani’s eight voice settings are now available. You can listen and download from this link. If the first psalm, Dixit Dominus, with its unusual refrain, constantly varying textures and martial affect [...]
  Magnificat
• Notes for the Berkeley Festival Finale Concert – June 13 06/03/2010
  The Berkeley Festival & Exhibition Finale will be a celebration of the extraordinary repertoire of music composed by Venetian composers for the elaboration of the office of Vespers during the century following the publication of Monteverdi’s monumental Vespro della Beata Vergine in 1610. The concert will feature works by 12 composers performed by Archetti, ARTEK, AVE, Magnificat, the Marion Verbruggen Trio, Music's Re-creation, and ¡Sacabuche!
  Warren Stewart
• Magnificat to Host the June ‘History Carnival’ 05/26/2010
  Magnificat will take part in what has become an impressive tradition, when we host the 88th History Carnival - due to be posted here on or around June 1. Each month since 2005, links to articles from the well-developed history blogosphere are gathered together and given some commentary for context.
  Warren Stewart
• Berkeley Festival Finale: A Venetian Vespers from Monteverdi to Vivaldi 05/23/2010
  The Berkeley Festival Finale program will be a celebration of the extraordinary repertoire of music composed by Venetian composers for the elaboration of the office of Vespers during the century following Monteverdi’s monumental Vespro della Beata Vergine in 1610. Though the music in Monteverdi’s collection was composed while he was in the service of the Duke of Mantua, it served to display his mastery of the sacred genres and contributed to his appointment in 1613 to the most prestigious musical position in Europe: maestro di cappella at the Basilica of St. Mark’s in Venice. Monteverdi’s colleagues at San Marco, and the illustrious series of musicians that followed him in the position of maestro, dedicated the finest fruits of their talent and skills to the ornamentation of the Vespers liturgy, the primary venue for elaborate sacred music throughout the 17th Century. This program will explore the ingenious ways that these composers adapted to the changing aesthetics in integrated the evolving compositional styles of the 17th Century in setting the ancient, unchanging texts that make up the Vespers liturgy.
  Magnificat
• Berkeley Festival: Cozzolani’s Concerti Sacri (1642) 05/22/2010
  All but one of the motets (O cæli cives from Salmi a Otto Voci, 1650) on Magnificat’s June 11 concert as part of the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition are drawn from Cozzolani’s second publication, Concerti sacri, a set of twenty concertos for 1 to 4 voices and a Mass Ordinary for four voices published in 1642. The volume was dedicated to the single most important patron of singers in northern Italy, Prince Matthias de’ Medici, a cadet whose military career had taken him from Florence to Milan in late winter 1640-1 and who mostly likely heard Cozzolani’s music during his stay in the city.
  Robert L. Kendrick
• SFCV Berkeley Festival Preview 05/18/2010
  (Posted today in the San Francisco Classical Voice) "There’s no lack of ambition in this year’s festival. Artists’ Vocal Ensemble (AVE) will do Carlo Gesualdo’s mind-bending Tenebrae; New York’s ARTEK Ensemble sings the delicious Fifth Book of Madrigals by Monteverdi; and the culminating concert features a potpourri Vespers service with all the main-stage groups — 65 musicians! — performing together, coordinated by Warren Stewart, Magnificat’s artistic director. And that’s not to mention the more than 50 (that’s not a misprint) fringe concerts, ranging from the deeply silly to the deeply moving, in 15 different venues."
  San Francisco Classical Voice