15th International Course of Medieval Music

July 29th to the 3th of August 2024

The Course is divided into two levels:

Masterclass

(higher technical level):

Crawford Young

on Tinctoris Treatise De inventione et usu musice (c. 1480-1483).

Igor Pomykalo 

On LIRA DA BRACCIO.

Ordinary Courses

(for everyone), in which it is possible to study, in addition to the selected music, even the repertoire of your choice.

‘400 

Ballate, Barzellette, Strambotti,

the Italian music in 15th century 

The 15th edition of the International Course of Medieval Music coincides with 40 years of Micrologus and 15 years of the Centro Studi Adolfo Broegg. This year’s theme will be dedicated to the musical forms of Italian Humanism. In the Italy of the 15th century, many musical genres and styles coexisted, given the great passion of the ruling families on the peninsula for music of the Oltremontani. The chapel masters of the wealthiest and most prestigious courts, such as the Aragonese court of Naples, the Este in Ferrara, the Bentivoglio in Bologna, the Medici in Florence, and the Sforza in Milan, as well as the papal court, had Flemish or 

Northern French musicians in their service. The Burgundian court of Philip the Good (1420-1467) was one of the most important cultural centers in Europe, and many of the composers who passed through there were the same ones who brought a vast repertoire to Italy, as evidenced by handwritten sources, mainly Franco-Flemish. Distinguished musicologists since the early 1950s have tried to understand why the 15th century seemed to be a century without Italian music and poetry. The title of the book “Il segreto del quattrocento” [The Secret of the Quattrocento] by Torrefranca summarizes this “mystery” which other scholars, notably Nino Pirrotta, have tried to investigate. The Sicilian musicologist analyzed the possible reasons for this apparent gap in early modern Italian music. Thanks to his original intuition affirming the central role of oral tradition, certain repertoires, even regional ones such as siciliane and justiniane, can be highlighted, defining a true Italian style instead. Pirrotta argued that Italian repertoires were performed, but that a large part of them went unnotated, given the improvisational tradition and unwritten tradition that characterized that historical period. In his words,

“The music from which we make history, the written tradition of music, may be likened to the visible tip of an iceberg, most of which is submerged and invisible. The visible tip certainly merits our attention, because ‘it is all that remains of the past and because it represents the most consciously elaborated portion, but in our assessments we should always keep in mind the seven-eighths of the iceberg that remain sub- merged: the music of the unwritten tradition.[2]

Despite the predominance of Franco-Flemish music in Italian sources, a large number of Italian-texted pieces have been transmitted. Ballate, barzellette, strambotti, and then frottole, these forms sometimes follow the compositional rules brought by theorists from Franco-Flemish countries, but very often they have a more chordal structure that follows the poetic text; the counterpoint is often simplified, suggesting a practice of monodic singing accompanied by an impromptu accompaniment on a stringed instrument. The lira da braccio, the lute and the cetra were the instruments preferred by the humanists, who saw in them the ancient classical tradition of singing to the lyre of Orpheus and Apollo. They were less interested in those “little signs of music” that characterized the rigor of polyphonic singing and ornate counterpoint, and instead were more attracted to singing strambotti, sonetti and capituli to simple melodies to better understand the sense of the text. The differences between Italian and Franco-Flemish repertoires will be analyzed in the light of the treatises of the time, with a focus on Johannes Tinctoris’ treatise “De inventione et usu musice” (c. 1480-1483).

[1] Nino Pirrotta,’Musica tra Medioevo e Rinascimento’, Einaudi, Torino 1984, p. 177

[2] Nino Pirrotta, “The Oral and Written Traditions of Music,” Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 72. 

Ordinary Courses

Singing: Patrizia Bovi  –  assistant Andres Montilla

Gregorian chant: Andres Montilla

Wind instruments (pipe & tabor, flutes, bagpipes): Goffredo Degli Esposti

Fiddle/ Rebec: Gabriele Russo

Lute, guittern and oud (Europe – Middle East): Peppe Frana

Hurdy-gurdy / Symphonia: Giordano Ceccotti

Percussion / Dulcimer: Enea Sorini

Portative organ, hammered clavisimbalum: Ryszard Lubieniecki

LESSONS are INDIVIDUAL, and concern both technique and interpretation within historical performance practice. Lessons are open to auditors

DAILY SCHEDULE

9.30 a.m.-1.00 p.m. LESSONS 

1:00-3:00 p.m.: LUNCH BREAK

3:00-4:45 p.m.: WORKSHOPS A and MASTERCLASS 

  • ENSEMBLE CLASS FOR SMALL GROUPS (beginners)
  • ENSEMBLE FOR WINDS AND PERCUSSIONS

5:15-7:00 p.m.: WORKSHOPS B and MASTERCLASS 

  • ENSEMBLE CLASS FOR SMALL GROUPS (advanced)

EVENING – (program in preparation)

SUNDAY  28 of July August
registration and payment

6:30-7:30 p.m.: Welcome aperitif

August 3: FINAL CONCERT by the students

MASTERCLASS

Crawford Young : on Tinctoris Treatise De inventione et usu musice (c. 1480-1483).

On Johannes Tinctoris’s treatise De inventione et usu musice From theory to practice, how to apply the indications given in Johannes Ticntoris’s treatise written in Naples.

– Igor Pomykalo 

(July 31th – August 1st)

On LIRA DA BRACCIO and a new Method to study it.

 

WORKSHOPS FOR ENSEMBLES

ENSEMBLE FOR WINDS AND PERCUSSIONS A – Enea Sorini

ENSEMBLE CLASS FOR SMALL GROUPS (beginners) A – 1° Goffredo Degli Esposti / 2° Gabriele Russo

ENSEMBLE CLASS FOR SMALL GROUPS (advanced) A – Peppe Frana  

STRING INSTRUMENT MAINTENANCE  B (Friday afternoon only) -Giordano Ceccotti

WORKSHOP

 

CONFERENCES

29 luglio 2024 – ore 19,00

Le forme poetiche e musicali nell’Italia del ‘400… Istruzioni per l’uso 

di Patrizia Bovi

https://centrostudiadolfobroegg.it/en/29-luglio-2024-conferenza-di-patrizia-bovi/

30 Luglio 2024 – ore 15,00

La lauda specchio dell’esperienza popolare: il ms. Western 84 della Columbia University Library di New York

di Francesco Zimei

https://centrostudiadolfobroegg.it/en/30-luglio-2024-conferenza-di-francesco-zimei/

31 luglio 2024 – ore 19,00

LIRA da BRACCIO tra tardo Quattrocento e il primo Cinquecento

di  Igor Pomykalo

https://centrostudiadolfobroegg.it/en/31-luglio-2024-conferenza-di-igor-pomykalo/

Scheduled courses

Courses of Singing, Strings (Viella and Ribeca), Lute, Wind instruments, Hurdy-gurdy (historical and traditional), medieval percussions and Dulcimer

Conferences and theoretical lessons

With scholars and musicologists who will study the different aspects of the music of the Medieval period

The teachers

Andrés Montilla-Acurero

Course on GREGORIAN CHANT 

Born in Venezuela, he completes studies in Singing with Alessandro Quarta, specializing in Baroque Singing with Gemma Bertagnolli and Teresa Chirico (Conservatorio L. Refice), in Gregorian Chant and Semiology with Alberto Turco and in Vocal Chamber Music and Vocal Ensemble Conducting with Anthony Rooley and Evelyn Tubb (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis).

He regularly collaborates as tenor/haute-contre with conductors such as Jordi Savall, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alessandro Quarta, Ketil Haugsand, Francesco Cera, Patrizia Bovi, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher, Claudio Astronio, Fabio Lombardo, Walter Testolin, Michele Vannelli and Stephen Smith, and with ensembles such as Concerto Romano, Concerto Italiano, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Ensemble Arte Musica, Micrologus, La Venexiana, Theresia Baroque Orchestra, De Labyrintho, Odhecaton, Concerto Ibérico, L’Homme armé, Voces Suaves, and La Compagnia del Madrigale.

His repertoire focuses on the tenor-alto parts of 17th-century Italian, haute-contre parts of 17th-7th-century French, and 18th-century tenor parts, with special emphasis on the role of the Evangelist in Bach.

Recently he has performed the role-title of Lully’s Persée at the Amuz Flanders Festival in Antwerp, the Musikhuset Aalborg Opera Festival and the Copenhagen Renaissance Music Festival, the role-title of Rameau’s Zoroastre conducted by C. Astronio at the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana in Rimini within a film production directed by Gianni Di Capua, the role-title of Stradella’s Oratorio San Giovanni Battista conducted by A. Quarta, the role of Arnalta in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea in Bologna directed by M. Vannelli with direction by A. Allegrezza, the role of Shepherd in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in Barcelona, Adelaide and Beijing directed by R. Alessandrini, the role of Eumete in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria directed by A. Quarta at the Teatro di Villa Torlonia and Teatro Flavio Vespasiano in Rieti, the role of Un Athlète in Rameau’s Castor et Pollux in Heidelberg, and the role of Nutrice in L’Incoronazione di Poppea at Theater Kiel directed by A. Quarta. She will soon play the role of Architecture in Fux’s Gli ossequi della notte in Graz, directed by A. Bernardini.

Ryszard Lubieniecki

Ryszard Lubieniecki – composer, musicologist, instrumentalist, and improviser from Poland. 

He studied composition and accordion performance at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz (Poland). Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in the Institute of Musicology at the University of Wrocław, where he studies late medieval music. His recent research focuses on the memory craft and its relationship to musical and theoretical sources from the early XV century. Besides the accordion, he plays medieval keyboard instruments (portative organ, hammered clavisimbalum). He is the co-founder of contemporary music trio Layers, the medieval music ensemble Vox Imaginaria, and more ephemeral groups of free improvised music, e.g. Widzicie, Lubieniecki/Rupniewski, and Ute von Bingen. In January 2023 his album „Musikformen der Natur” with new pieces for portative organ has been released by EMA Vinci.

https://soundcloud.com/ryszard-lubieniecki

https://www.youtube.com/@RyszardLub

FEES

STUDENT FEE*:
Singing/Instrument/Masterclass: 310 €

*Fee includes LESSONS and WORKSHOPS

2° COURSE FREQUENCY:

Singing/Instrument/Masterclass: 250 €

WORKSHOPS ONLY:
Singing/Instrument: 180 €

ENSEMBLE FEE* (minimum 3 members):
Singing/Instrument/Masterclass: 250€

*Fee includes LESSONS and WORKSHOPS

2° COURSE FREQUENCY FOR ENSEMBLE:

Singing/Instrument course: 230 €

WORKSHOPS ONLY FOR ENSEMBLE:
Singing/Instrument: 170 €

DEADLINE: June 30

We kindly ask the students to send an advance of €. 100 from 1st to 10th July to finalize the application.

After this date will be still possible to apply with an additional fee of 40€.

It is possible to have 6 LUNCHES by paying €80 more (15€ single lunch), menu Bio.

Here is the  APPLICATION FORM 2024 to fill out and, please, send a email to stefania.segreteria@centrostudiadolfobroegg.it

APPLICATION FORM

Name:

Surname:

Date and place of birth:

Address:

City:

Postal code:

Phone:

Mobile:

e-mail:

Applications to the Course:

Level: beginner advanced

Instrument played and preferred tuning:

Practical vocal or instrumental since:

at:

Knowledge of voice / instrument (specify diploma conservatory, regular school attendance courses, private education, autodidact):

Teachers had:

Other musical knowledge:

It allows the processing of personal data in accordance with standards Decree No. 196/2003.

Date:

Signature:

Please send the application form at: stefania.segreteria@centrostudiadolfobroegg.it