This preview was provided by Carolina Pro Musica.
Christina, Queen of Sweden, abdicated the Swedish crown in 1654, secretly becoming a catholic before the abdication and then moved to Rome. Highly educated she would become a significant patron of music and opera in the city. While there she befriended many of the local elite including cardinals who became part of her inner circle and attended her music and theatre soirées.
Under her patronage a literary was created to reform the diction of Italian poetry, which the founders believed had become corrupt through over-indulgence and the desire to sensationalize as inspired by the writer Giambattista Marino. A more natural, simple poetic style based on the classics and particularly on Greek and Roman pastoral poetry was the goal. After Christina’s death in 1689, her friends founded the academy to give their meetings permanence and “to exterminate bad taste, and to see to it that it shall not rise again.” They named the academy for Arcadia, a pastoral region of ancient Greece, and assumed Greek names themselves.
Christina was particularly fond of the music of Alessandro Scarlatti, Corelli, and Stradella. Works by these composers often used texts in the Arcadian manner.
The concert will feature two short cantatas by Scarlatti featuring soprano Rebecca Miller Saunders. One work is for obbligato recorder and voice; the other for voice and two recorders. Fittingly these pastoral works make use of the recorder, a seemingly shepherd’s instrument. Eddie Ferrell will be the featured recorder player. Holly Wright Maurer will be heard on recorder and also play viola da gamba.
Solo sonatas and instrumental trios by Castello, Corelli and Stradella add to the variety of musical flavors.
Also included is a bit of early baroque music some enticing works by Monteverdi.
The Seventeenth century was a time of change and exploration which will be clearly demonstrated by Carolina Pro Musica on November 14, 2015.
