Viva Italia: Sacred Music in 17th Century Rome

Saturday, April 18, 2015
4:00 pm
Viva Italia: Sacred Music in 17th Century Rome
Location:

Some of Europe’s most famous Renaissance and Baroque composers lived and worked in Rome during the 1600s. In Viva Italia, the Duke Vespers Ensemble -- in collaboration with Mallarme Chamber Players and the Washington Cornett and Sackbutt ensemble -- presents a selection of music influenced by these composers. The music represents the beauty and majesty that was being cultivated in worship in 17th century Rome.

Tickets can be purchased at the door, online or by calling the Duke Box Office at 919-684-4444. Duke students go free.

An important location for talented European composers of the 17th century was Rome’s Collegio Germanico, the Vatican’s training center for German-speaking priests. Musicians connected to the center include Tomás Luis de Victoria, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Giacomo Carissimi, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Giovanni Felice Sances. This confluence of talent led to a golden age of sacred music in Rome and the emergence of creative performance practices that have remained relatively unknown. For example, the Collegio Germanico and other churches in Rome were beginning to add instrument doublings to their performances in the late 16th century and throughout the 17th century – so much that people started referring to this practice as the “uso di Roma,” or the “use in Rome.”

Viva Italia

The Viva Italia concert represents much of what one would have heard in mass or vespers worship services at the Collegio Germanico and elsewhere in Rome in the 17th century. Selections include:

  • Ave regina caelorum by Tomás Luis de Victoria
  • Regina Caeli by Tomás Luis de Victoria
  • Salve Regina by Tomás Luis de Victoria
  • Alma redemptoris mater by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
  • Dixit Dominus by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
  • O Dulcissima Mariae Domine by Giacomo Carissimi
  • Ave maris stella by Giovanni Felice Sances
  • Vulnerasti cor meum by Giovanni Felice Sances
  • Missa Sancta Mariae Magdalenae by Giovanni Felice Sances

The presentation of Sances’ Missa Sancta Mariae Magdalenae will be piece’s second performance in North America.

There will be a second performance of the concert at Christ Church (Episcopal) in Raleigh on Sunday, April 19, at 3 p.m.

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