Sarao de Musas

The Golden Age - Songs and divisions from SpainJohanna Rose / Mariví Blasco

Diego Ortiz (ca. 1510 –ca.1570):Recercadas sobre ‘La Spagna’José Marin (1618 - 1699):Qué bien canta un ruiseñorAnónimo:Ay amargas soledadesBartolomé de Selma y Salaverde (1580-1638):Susanna passegiata a Basso soloJuan Hidalgo (1614-1685):La noche tenebrosaHenry Butler (ca. 1610 - ca. 1652):División en ReJosé Marin:Ojos pues me desdeñaisJuan Cabanilles (1644 – 1712) Encontrado en "Flores de Música" de Antonio Martín y Coll (1680 - 1734):Diferencias sobre la gaitaJuan Hidalgo (1614-1685):Ay, Corazón amante!Anónimo:El bajel está en la playaAntonio Martín y Coll (c.1680-1734):XacarasJuan Hidalgo (1614-1685):Esperar, sentir, morirAntonio Martín y Coll (c.1680-1734):Diferencias sobre las FolíasJuan Hidalgo (1614-1685):Ay, que me río de Amor Johanna Rose Viola da gamba and directionMariví Blasco SopranoThis project can be done with a total of 3 to 5 musicians, adding baroque guitar, harp and percussion.

Open to commerce but closed in on itself, vanguard of the world and at the same time reactionary; at the peak of its power but at the beginning of its decadence; the Spain of the seventeenth century is seen today as both seductive and passionate and worthy of rejection and commiseration: a variegated universe, of brutal contrasts, where beauty and ugliness competed to win the battle of time.

The music - no doubt resident in the first of those worlds and always the winner of Cronos - was a haven of beauty: twinning the popular and the cultured, far from foreign influence but fused with the profound poetry of the Spanish Golden Age. In the peninsula, a musical path of its own was followed, with unique harmonies derived from Renaissance polyphony, local forms such as the carol and romance, peculiar crossed rhythms - which seem to be very flamenco today, but at that time were considered avant la lettre - instruments used such as the baroque guitar, created in Spain and played in a special way that would later be exported to all of Europe. There were improvised dances which we will be able to hear in this program: the jácaras, the bagpipes, the canaries, the folias - these followed the same path from the Spanish ports to the courts of the entire continent. In Spain, the so-called tono humano was created, equivalent in its own way to the arias and airs de cour from other latitudes. This form of expression shows the contrasts of a country as agitated as the biographies of its two most illustrious composers, Juan Hidalgo and José Marín. The first o them, a very successful harpist, with immense possibilities in his position as the director of the musical court in Madrid, lived with none other than the great Calderón de la Barca, whose texts he used for his music to create Spanish musical theater. The second was a guitarist and tenor, a cleric, a thief and a murderer, and although he knew about demise, jail and torture,it did not stop him from leaving us some of the most beautiful pages in the history of our vocal music. Today we can listen to both of them and judge their artistic merits from the privileged position of History.