CARNIVALESQUE

Patrizia Bovi - Soprano, harp, musical direction

Goffredo Degli Esposti - Pipe and tabor, pipe and buttafoco (string drum), sordellina (bagpipe)

Gabriele Russo - Lira da braccio, rebec

Enea Sorini - Baritone, percussion

Simone Sorini - Tenor, cantore a liuto

Olivier Marcaud - Tenor

Leah Stuttard - Harp (bray pins)

Crawford Young - Lute

Gabriele Miracle - Dulcimer, Percussion

Gianni La Marca - Viol

Mauro Borgioni - Bass

Ulrich Pfeifer - Voice on Lanxe Lanxe

Luigi Germini - Trombon

A new CD with frottole and villotte about folk themes and figures, later destined to become stock characters of the Commedia dell’Arte, of late 15th – Century: Scaramella/Scaramouche (a lampoon soldier), the lanzo or captain, the vecchia maladetta e rincagnata (a “wretched, pug-nosed old hag” who acts either as procuress or as an obstacle to love), Giannolo/Zano and Rosina (the lovers), La Ramacina (the unhappy wife), Il vecchio maladeto (the villainous old man: an unnamed forerunner of Pantalone) and Feragu (an unregenerate Don Giovanni). These figures, who appear in the interludes of the comedies and tragedies performed during festive gatherings at the great courts, first tell their stories and then perform dances such as the ballo del mattarel (“rolling pin dance”) or the mazacrocha (“breadstick dance”) and, above all, moresche (mauresques), performed at all Renaissance banquets and in the interludes of comedies as a pretext for travesty and transformation, giving rise to the symbolic portrayal of an exotic world revolving around play, love, war and the derision of power. A new recording full of colours, rhythm and……lies!

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