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

• Looking Back on Last Season: Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero 08/22/2010
  Magnificat's 2009-2010 season opened with a somewhat irreverent production of Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero on the weekend on October 16-18, 2009. The production marked the return of The Carter Family Marionettes, with their troupe of wooden trouble-makers, to Magnificat's series. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle expressed what many of the audience felt when he commented that "the Carters have wooden stand-ins not only for the main human characters but also for dragons and demons, birds and gamboling lambs, transformed trees and dancing sea horses, and the level of theatrical magic on display was enchanting."
  Magnificat
• The Sources for John Blow’s Venus and Adonis 08/19/2010
  The principal manuscript source of Venus and Adonis in its original version is British Library, Add. MS 22100, a handsome presentation score-book copied by John Walter, organist of Eton College, who headed the work “A Masque for ye Entertainment of ye King”. Annotations in a different hand record the fact that Venus was sung by “Mrs Davys” and Cupid by Lady Mary Tudor. (Mary or Moll Davies was a former singing actress, who in 1667 had taken the part of Ariel in Dryden and Davenant’s radically revised version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and who had retired from the stage in the following year; she had also been one of the king’s mistresses, and Lady Mary Tudor was her natural daughter by the king – one of his numerous by-blows.)
  Bruce Wood
• At the Crossroads Between Masque and Opera 08/18/2010
  Magnificat’s 2010-2011 season will open with a concert production of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis on the weekend of October 8-10. Venus and Adonis is generally considered the earliest surviving ‘opera’ in the English language but as Bruce Wood notes in his excellent introduction to the Purcell Society’s recent parallel edition of the two versions [...]
  Magnificat
• Magnificat Moves Peninsula Series to St. Patrick’s 08/16/2010
  Magnificat will be performing all of their Peninsula concerts in the 2010-2011 season at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. One of the most attractive performance venues in the Bay Area, St. Patrick’s was the site for two of Magnificat’s concerts last season and the audience response was overwhelming. “I first encountered St. Patrick’s when I [...]
  Magnificat
• Anne Kingsmill 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 Kingsmill, 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