SKU: BA.BVK02137

Five Centuries of Sacred Muisc in San Pietro. Composed by Giancarlo Rostirolla. Hardback. Volume I + II. Book. Baerenreiter Verlag #BVK02137_00. Published by Baerenreiter Verlag (BA.BVK02137).

ISBN 9783761821374. 24.5 x 17.5 cm inches. Text Language: Italian.

One of the major institutions of sacred music, the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's Basilica, can look back on a five-hundred-year history. Now Giancarlo Rostirolla brings this turbulent and spellbinding history to life using original documents from the Papal Library and the chapter archives of Saint Peter in the Vatican.

The Cappella Giulia was founded by Pope Julius II in 1513. Its chapel masters were the most important representatives of Roman vocal polyphony, above all Giovanni Animuccia and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Francesco Soriano, Virgilio Mazzocchi, Orazio Benevoli, Paolo Lorenzani and Pietro Bencini. Also employed there were such opera composers as Domenico Scarlatti, Niccolò Jommelli and Nicola Zingarelli, the proponents of Italian Cecilianism up to Armando Renzi, and such renowned organists as Girolamo Frescobaldi.

In this documentary history, as comprehensive as it is exciting to read, Giancarlo Rostirolla pays tribute to the Cappella Giulia as a musical institution of extraordinary historical importance and the vehicle for half a millennium of sacred music. For decades the author, an internationally acclaimed authority on Rome's musical traditions, has immersed himself like few others in the church and chapel archives, libraries and music collections of the Eternal City.

– For the first time these two volumes explore the history of the Cappella Giulia with information on all the musicians known to have worked there, together with their biographies, lists of compositions and documents on the chapel's history.

(Loving Mother of Our Saviour). By Francesco Soriano (1549-1620). Edited by John Lee. For SATB Choir and piano reduction. Ars Antiqua. Sacred. Easy. 8 pages. Published by GIA Publications

Choir; Early Music

SKU: UT.MS-21A

Composed by Francesco Soriano. Edited by Salvatore Villani. Saddle stitching. Sacred. Score. Ut Orpheus #MS 21A. Published by Ut Orpheus (UT.MS-21A).

ISBN 9790215304819. 8.26 x 11.69 inches.

String orchestra

SKU: BO.B.3292

Composed by Jordi Cervello. Instrumental Sets. Duration 17:35. Published by Editorial de Musica Boileau (BO.B.3292).

English comments:
This is the definitive version of Biogenesis, a piece that Cervello had written in 1976, together with his friend Jorge Wagensberg, and which was awarded the First Prize at the Spanish Ministry for Education and Science's Permanent Composition and Musical Research Competition. The new version was made at 1984-85 Lux et umbra is written for a string group consisting of four first and four second violins, three violas, three cellos and a double bass. The conceptual battle between darkness and light is represented by the instability between the notes B and C, and by the compartmentation of the group of fifteen strings into divisi that provide an independent arrangement for each instrument, thus bestowing great substance upon the texture of the music. A cello cadence emerges from a slow and straightforward beginning. A process of contrasts then begins, culminating in a molto vivace passage of a scherzando nature, which alludes to the Baroque concerti grossi. The music once again plays with chiaroscuro until reaching its climax, from which point the conclusion slowly begins, establishing itself in the high register until fading away. The work was first performed at Barcelona's Palau de la Musica by the English Chamber Orchestra, directed by Enrique Garcia Asensio, in 1987. That same year, in the newspaper El Pais, the observations of the composer and critic Francesc Taverna-Bech paid tribute to the work's intelligence as regards the use of and search for instrumental resources (in this case, string instruments, about which Cervello knows a great deal), the skill involved in endowing the lyrical line with tension, and a singular touch that confers formal essence upon the musical discourse. In La Vanguardia, Jordi Llovet wrote that this is a work in which, as is the case with most of Cervello's compositions, the listener finds something covertly religious, a mysterious secret, a transcendence linked to the origins of communication requiring more than a single being, which provides excitement. In 1990, when the Orquesta de Granada (Orchestra of Granada) performed the work at Barcelona's Grec festival, the critic Cesar Calmell opined, in the same newspaper, that inch by inch, surely and imperturbably, Cervello built up a perfect world that reflects the image of the craftsman who, so astonished at the delights of his trade, is unable to do anything but turn the very backdrop of tragedy into something pleasant. Lux et umbra was recorded by the Orchestra Estatal of the Hermitage, conducted by Alexis Soriano (CD SA01210 Fundacion Autor). --Xavier Casanoves Danes Music critic

Comentari os del Espanol:
Se trata de la version definitiva de Biogenesis, obra que habia escrito en 1976 en colaboracion con su amigo Jorge Wagensberg y que obtuvo el Primer Premio, en el ano de su creacion, en el Concurso Permanente de Composicion e Investigacion Musical del Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia. La nueva version fue realizada en 1984-85. Lux et umbra esta escrita para un grupo de cuerda integrado por cuatro primeros violines, cuatro segundos, tres violas, tres violoncelos y un contrabajo. El combate filosofico entre la oscuridad y la luz lo lleva a cabo la inestabilidad entre las notas si y do y la compartimentacion del grupo de quince cuerdas en unos divisi que llegan a una escritura independiente para cada instrumento, otorgando una gran importancia a la textura sonora. De un principio lento y descarnado emerge una cadencia del violonchelo. A continuacion da comienzo un proceso de contrastes que culmina en un pasaje molto vivace de caracter scherzando que alude a los concerti grossi del barroco. La musica juega de nuevo con el claroscuro hasta llegar a la cumbre sonora iniciando el final lentamente que se instala en el registro agudo hasta desvanecerse. La estreno en el Palau de la Musica de Barcelona la English Chamber Orchestra en el ano 1987 bajo la direccion de Enrique Garcia Asensio. Ese mismo ano, en el periodico El Pais, el compositor y critico Francesc Taverna-Bech reconocia en sus comentarios la inteligencia en el uso y la busqueda de los recursos instrumentales -en este caso la cuerda, de la que Cervello es profundo conocedor-, la destreza para revestir de tension la linea lirica y un tacto particular para conferir entidad formal al discurso sonoro. Jordi Llovet, en La Vanguardia, escribia que en esta obra, se encuentra, como en la mayor parte de la produccion de Cervello, algo secretamente religioso, un arcano misterioso, una trascendencia vinculada a los origenes de la comunicacion impracticable con el ser unico que resulta apasionante. En el ano 1990, cuando la Orquesta de Granada la toco en el Grec de Barcelona, era el critico Cesar Calmell quien, en el mismo periodico consideraba que Cervello construyo palmo a palmo, segura e imperturbablemente, un mundo perfecto que refleja la imagen del artesano que, de tan admirado con las delicias de su oficio, no puede hacer otra cosa que convertir en agradable el fondo mismo de la tragedia. Lux et umbra esta grabada por la Orquesta Estatal del Hermitage, dirigida por Alexis Soriano (CD SA01210 Fundacion Autor). --Xavier Casanoves Danes Critico musical.