Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, tra voce e strumento da tasto
Mantua Baroque Ensemble, Del Sordo, Besutti

Mantua Baroque Ensemble

Cecilia Rizzetto, cantus

Nina Cuk, contralto

Angelo Goffredi, tenor

Gian Paolo Dal Dosso, bass

Federico Del Sordo, harpsichord and organ

Paola Besutti, narrator

Vincenzo Bell’Haver (c.1540–1587)

Toccata

G. Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594)

Regina Coeli

Super flumina Babylonis

Ricercata del ottavo tono

Alma Redemptoris Mater

Ricercata del terzo tono

Annibale Padovano (c.1527–1575)

Toccata del Ottavo Tuono

G. Pierluigi da Palestrina

Hodie Beata Virgo

Sicut Cervus

In collaboration with AmareMantova ETS

30’ | Admission with complimentary ticket offered by Oficina OCM and Gruppo Tea

PLEASE NOTE: Tickets may only be reserved and collected at the Trame Sonore Festival Box Office.

More than a musical event, this concert is a journey into the sixteenth century, evoking the dialogue between the purity of vocal writing and the virtuosity of keyboard music.

The programme opens with Palestrina, among the greatest masters of the Renaissance, whose style reconciles the technical rigour required by the Church with exquisitely graceful melodies, ensuring the utmost clarity of the sacred texts. For this occasion, several of his masterpieces will be performed, including the celebrated motet Sicut Cervus and the Ricercate: works of remarkable intellectual structure, in which the musical subject is explored with almost mathematical precision, yet always with harmonic balance. From the “Saviour of Polyphony,” the programme moves to Padovano and Bell’Haver, both organists at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, whose instrumental Toccatas are free, imaginative, and filled with rapid passages that brought the organ and harpsichord to new expressive heights.

The performance is entrusted to specialists in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire: the Mantua Baroque Ensemble offers a historically informed interpretation, uniting these seemingly distant musical worlds through a coherent sonic identity. Federico Del Sordo, a profound expert in historical keyboard instruments, shapes the rhythm and breathing of the concert, while Paola Besutti will guide the audience through the deeper meanings of the texts.

Text by Valeria Del Giorno