The first page of Quis audivit unquam tale from the Bass part book
The Cozzolani Project is pleased to announce the release of a new track, the Christmas/Epiphany motet Quis audivit unquam tale.
As with most of the non-liturgical texts set by Cozzolani, the author of Quis audivit unquam tale is unknown, but there are references to Song of Songs 3:11 and the Gospel of John 1:14. The motet is notable for its variety of textures, alternating antiphonal motives and invertible counterpoint and florid declamatory writing with unexpected extensions of melodic ideas. Word painting for the parallel expressions of ascending and descending and for the contrast of the Kingdom of Heaven and the humble manger make this one of the most immediately attractive of Cozzolani’s works.
In the 1650 publication, Quis audivit unquam tale is scored for two sopranos and bass and Magnificat’s recording features Catherine Webster and Jennifer Ellis Kampani along with contralto Elizabeth Anker, who sings some of the bass part at pitch and some transposed up an octave. Magnificat first performed the motet in December 1999 on the San Francisco Early Music Society concert series, with recent performances last month on our own series.
Quis audivit unquam tale is available for streaming and download at The Cozzolani Project Music Page.
Gloria in altissimis – New Release from The Cozzolani Project
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First page of Gloria in altissimis from the Canto Primo part book. (click for full facsimile of the motet.)
The Cozzolani Project’s first new release is the Chrsitmas Dialogue Gloria in altissimis, one of the Cozzolani’s most immediately appealing works, in which she vividly captures the brilliance and wonder of the Christmas narrative. The anonymous text alludes to Luke 2:10 and 14, and in Cozzolani’s hands it is infused with a gleeful exuberance and a touch of chromatic mystery. The Angels (two sopranos) are “glorious” and the shepherds (scored for alto and tenor) are at first astonished and then jubilant.
After the initial encounter, increasingly expressive solos are given to the four voices in turn, sung on Magnificat’s recording by soprano Catherine Webster, alto Suzanne Jubenville, soprano Andrea Fullington, and alto Karen Clark, who sings the tenor part at notated pitch. David Tayler, theorbo and Hanneke van Proosdij, organ complete the ensemble.
“Soften the voice as if, little by little, going away”
In an almost theatrical gesture, Cozzolani instructs the four singers at the end to “soften the voice as if, little by little, going away” in imitation of the Angelic choir disappearing as they ascend back to Heaven after announcing their good news to the awestruck shepherds.
Gloria in altissimis is designated in the part books (download facsimile) as a “Dialogue between the angels and the shepherds, for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord”. Robert Kendrick observed that “of all the new genres found in Seicento Milan, the dialogue was the most central, a phenomenon evident in Cozzolani’s motet books…providing a vehicle for the expression of individual affect, whether of generic figures, scriptural characters, or historical saints…” The dialogue genre embodied the idea of direct communication between humans and the divine that dominated Milanese spiritual writing of the first half of the 17th Century.
Eight of Cozzolani’s works are explicitly designated as “dialogues”, four in each of the two surviving collections. The range of works so designated is remarkable, encompassing as it does acclamatory (Psallite superi, O caeli cives), biblical (this work for Christmas, Maria Magdalene stabat for Easter), consolatory (Ave mater dilectissima), and liturgical (Beatus vir) settings, as well as the only two penitential motets in Cozzolani’s entire output (O mi domine, and Quid miseri).
Magnificat first performed Gloria in altissimis on the San Francisco Early Music Society series in December 1999. We performed the dialogue again earlier this month on our own series in a program structured around the Midnight Mass. The recording was produced by Peter Watchorn and engineered and mixed by Joel Gordon.
Posted December 16th, 2009. 6 comments
Celebrating A Decade of Cozzolani
Magnificat
On the weekend of December 4-6, Magnificat will celebrate the 10th anniversary of our first performances of the music of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani with a program featuring her Messa a 4. The program will feature sopranos Catherine Webster and Jennifer Ellis Kampani, altos Meg Bragle and Kristen Dubenion-Smith, baroque cellist Warren Stewart and organist Hanneke van Proosdij. Hugh Davies will serve as celebrant chanting the texts reserved for priests in the mass.
The program is structured around the liturgy for Christmas Midnight Mass and will include Cozzolani’s setting of the mass ordinary and five of her motets on Christmas subjects interwoven with traditional Gregorian chant. The motets will include Ecce annuntio vobis, Quis audivit unquam tale?, O dulcis Jesu, and Gloria in altissimis. The program will also mark the modern premiere of O præclara dies from Cozzolani’s 1648 collection of solo soprano motets.
The program will be performed on Friday December 4 at 8:00 pm at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park; Saturday December 5 at 8:00 pm at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley; and Sunday December 6 at 4:00 pm at St. Mark’s Lutheran in San Francisco. A pre-concert lecture for all ticket holders will be given 45 minutes before each performance by Magnificat’s Artistic Director Warren Stewart.
Click here for tickets and more information.
Posted November 30th, 2009. Add a comment
The first page of O praeclara dies
We are fortunate that Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, unlike most of the nuns composing for convents in the 17th century, had the opportunity to publish some of her music. Had her works not been printed on the press of Venetian publisher Alessandro Vincenti, they would most likely have met the same fate of the vast majority of music recorded solely in manuscript – lost in a fire, sold as scrap paper, or simply discarded when musical fashions changed.
Only two of Cozzolani’s four published collections survived into modern times complete: Concerti Sacri … (1642), which includes the four voice Mass that Magnificat will perform in December, and Salmi a Otto Voci … (1650), from which the psalms in our Vespers programs are drawn. Sadly, the one part book from her first publication of motets Primavera di fiori musicali (1640) that survived into the 20th Century was destroyed in 1945 along with the entire Berlin Singakademie library. However, in the case of her collection of solo motets Scherzi di Sacra Melodia … (1648), we still have the soprano part book, though the basso continuo part book has been lost.
Over the past decade that Magnificat has been performing and recording Cozzolani’s music, there have been three previous programs on which we have performed motets from the Scherzi with newly “re-composed” continuo parts. In our upcoming performances on the weekend of December 4-6, Catherine Webster will sing the Christmas motet O præclara dies from the 1648 collection in what will most likely be a modern premiere.
In addition to it’s Christmas subject, O præclara dies shares many features with the other solo motet on Magnificat’s December program, Ecce annuntio vobis from the 1642 collection, which will be sung by Jennifer Ellis Kampani in a revival of her memorable performance of the motet in Magnificat’s first performances of Cozzolani’s music in 1999. Both motets (or concerti as they were called at the time) employ iterative procedures with no internal refrains, feature extraordinary vocal virtuosity and include a triple meter piva section before the final alleluia.
But what about that missing continuo part?
There is, of course, no way to determine with any certainty how Cozzolani would have elaborated the bass. The mid century trend towards more active bass lines involving “walking” ostinatos, shared melodic phrases and periods, and the more generally structural function given to the bass all presents more options in “re-creating” the missing part, but also make the process more challenging. However, having prepared, rehearsed and performed nearly every bass line Cozzolani published, we have learned to recognize characteristic melodic and harmonic patterns and that helps to narrow down the likely harmonizations for any given melodic passage.
For the other “re-composed” continuo parts from the 1648 collection that Magnificat has performed, I have sketched a basic framework that is then modified during rehearsals by the musicians – especially Magnificat’s fine continuo team of David Tayler and Hanneke van Proosdij, who are probably more familiar with Cozzolani’s continuo writing than anyone. So the recomposing is definitely a collaborative process, with final decisions often being made in the dress rehearsal.
As a bass line player myself, I have found the process fascinating. While in most cases the basic structure is evident from the melodic line, there are cases where the choice of one inversion or another or the use of imitation or other figuration can dramatically alter the emotional effect of a passage or color the expression of a particular word or emotion.
Posted November 27th, 2009. Add a comment
By all accounts the nuns at the convent of Santa Radegonda in the 17th Century did not have internet access and so it had to wait until the 21st century for Chiara Margarita Cozzolani to launch get her own Facebook page. With her birthday coming up on November 27th in seemed like an especially appropriate time. As Magnificat prepares for our upcoming performances of phenomenal music of the Benedictine nun from Santa Radegonda, it occurred to us that she deserved a Facebook page. Please visit and become a fan! Continue Reading…
Posted November 26th, 2009. Add a comment
