September 28, Saturday, 6 pm
Palace of the Grand Dukes, Katedros a. 4
Il bianco e dolce cigno
Madrigals by Arcadelt, Lasso, Vecchi and other Italian composers
BREVIS Choir and Consort
Directors Gintautas Venislovas and Darius Stabinskas
Even though the origins of the Italian madrigal go back to the 14th century, the Brevis Choir and Consort intends to reveal the beauty of madrigal masterpieces from the 16th century when this genre had reached the height of its popularity. This was the case not just in Western Europe, as the genre accompanied Queen Bona Sforza and her cappella of Italian musicians to our lands as well. The popularity of the madrigal as a secular music genre lay in the special link between poetry and music, attention to every vocal line and a huge range of masterfully utilized means of polyphony, rhythm and harmony. Some texts can be heard repeated in more than one composer’s works; this reveals the prevailing tastes in poetry at the time. Certain Italian composers maintained ties with Lithuania’s rulers and magnates, sometimes even dedicating their musical works to them. This includes Orazio Vecchi’s first book of madrigals that was dedicated to Albrecht Radziwiłł and Giovanni Battista Mosto’s second book of madrigals, dedicated to Krzysztof Radziwiłł.