Download Magnificat’s recording of Laudate Dominum

Jennifer Ellis Kampani

Magnificat is pleased to release our recording of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s setting of the psalm Laudate Dominum, one of only two works by the composer involving obbligato instruments and her only psalm setting for solo voice. As with her second setting of Laudate pueri, Cozzolani adds two violins to the texture and, as in that psalm, the violins are used here both to punctuate the text with ritornelli and in interactive dialogue with the voice.

Magnificat’s recording features soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani, who will be singing in their upcoming performances of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers on the weekend of April 23-25 and will perform a solo recital as part of Magnificat’s 2010-2011 season. The recording also features violinists Rob Diggins and Jolianne von Einem and the continuo team of David Tayler, theorbo, and Hanneke van Proosdij, organ. Laudate Dominum omnes gentes will be included in Volume 1 of the complete works of Cozzolani, which will be released by Musica Omnia at the Berkeley Early Music Festival this June.

Robert Kendrick provides a succinct analysis of the structure of Laudate Dominum in his seminal work on the music of nuns in 17th century Milan, Celestial Sirens:

“Given the liberties of both the psalm settings and the mottetto con strumenti, it is surprising that Cozzolani’s solo Laudate Dominum with two violins is nor even freer than its simple structure would indicate: an opening section ‘Laudate…omnes populi’ for solo voice, long instrumental ritornello, and tutti (with recalls of the opening at the end); the remaining psalm text, which moves from B minor to D minor; the return of the opening vocal idea and the ritornello, and then another troped doxology. This begins with new material but then interlaces the setting of ‘laudate’ in the middle of ‘et nunc et semper’, then surprisingly sets the last verbal phrase to the music of ‘omnes populi laudate’ from the very first tutti. As elsewhere in Cozzolani’s music, the surprise is not the use of the refrain but the way in which the first section is split and recalled unexpectedly–a final reflection, again, of the salmo bizzaro.”

To download a lossless file of Cozzolani’s Laudate Dominum in a variety of formats, hear other music by Cozzolani, or to pre-order Magnificat’s double-CD set of Cozzolani’s complete works, please visit the Cozzolani Project music page.

First page of the Cantus Primo partbook for Beatus Vir

Magnificat and Musica Omnia are pleased to announce our latest release – Cozzolani’s extraordinary setting of the psalm Beatus vir. Taking the characteristics of the “salmi bizarri” to an extreme, here Cozzolani manipulates the psalm text into a dialogue and collects ritornelli as she makes her way through the text. The recording features sopranos Catherine Webster, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, Ruth Escher and Andrea Fullington; altos Meg Bragle, Karen Clark, Suzanne Jubenville and Elizabeth Anker; and a continuo team of John Dornenburg, violone, David Tayler, theorbo and Hanneke van Proosdij, organ, with Warren Stewart conducting.

Magnificat first performed this compositional tour de force on the San Francisco Early Music Society series in 1999, with later performances at the 2002 Berkeley Early Music Festival, on the Music Before 1800 series in New York in 2003, and in 2007 for the Society for Seventeenth Century Music at Notre Dame University.

Cozzolani subtitles her setting of the psalm Beatus vir “In Forma di Dialogo“, signaling a very free recasting of the psalm text into a series of questions and answers between interlocutors. While the entire psalm text is traversed in its proper sequence (with the omission of occasional words), the text also serves as a matrix from which various phrases can be extracted and inserted repeatedly in the midst of other verses. Only a schematic of the text and its reworking can give an adequate idea of how freely and dramatically Cozzolani treats it. In the following outline of the psalm and its literal English translation, bold type indicates refrains and texts repeated out of order as found in the original psalm text. Italics constitute the dialogue, with questions and their answers, the answers derived from the psalm itself. The verses are numbered as in the Liber Usualis.

1. Beatus vir . . .
Qui beatus vir?
qui timet Dominum:
Qui timet Dominum, beatus vir?
Beatus vir qui timet Dominum:
in mandatis eius volet . . .
Volet, in mandatis eius?
Volet, volet nimis.
Beatus, beatus, beatus vir.
2. Potens in terra erit semen eius:
Potens in terra? Erit semen eius? Semen eius in terra, potens erit:
generatio rectorum benedicetur.
Benedicetur? In terra semen eius benedicetur.
Beatus, beatus, beatus vir.
3. Gloria et divitiae in domo eius:
Gloria in domo eius? Gloria. Divitiae in domo eius? Divitiae.
Gloria et divitiae in domo eius:
Et iustitia eius manet . . .
Manet iustitia eius?
Manet in saeculum saeculi.
In saeculum saeculi? In saeculum saeculi manet.
Beatus, beatus, beatus vir.
4. Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis:
Lumen rectis? Exortum est. In tenebris lumen? Exortum est
misericors, et miserator, et iustus.
5. Iocundus homo . . .
Beatus, beatus, beatus vir.
Qui miseratur?
Iocundus homo
Et commodat?
Iocundus homo
disponet sermones suos in iudicio,
Iocundus homo
quia in aeternum non commovebitur.
Non commovebitur? In aeternum. Non commovebitur? In aeternum non commovebitur.
Iocundus homo.
6. In memoria aeterna erit iustus:
Iustus erit in memoria? Erit in memoria aeterna,
Iocundus homo,
ab auditione mala non timebit.
Non timebit? Non. Ab auditione mala? Non. Non timebit? Non, non timebit,
Iocundus homo.
7. Paratum cor eius sperare in Domino,
Paratum cor eius? Paratum. Paratum sperare? Sperare in Domino.
confirmatum est cor eius . . .["non commovebitur" omitted]
Donec? Donec dispiat inimicos suos,
Iocundus homo.
8. Dispersit
Dedit pauperibus? Dedit pauperibus
divitiae in domo eius.
iustitia eius manet in saeculum saeculi:
In memoria aeterna erit iustus,
cornu eius exaltabitur in gloria.
Gloria in domo eius,
Iocundus homo.
Beatus, beatus, beatus vir.
9. Peccator videbit et irascetur,
Beatus vir qui timet Dominum
dentibus suis fremet et tabescet.
Iocundus homo qui miseratur,
desiderium peccatorum peribit.
Peribit? Peribit,
in memoria aeterna erit iustus,
in aeterna non commovebitur,
desiderium peccatorum peribit.
10. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.
11. Sicut erat in principio,
Gloria Patri
et nunc et semper
Gloria Filio,
et in saecula saeculorum,
Gloria Spiritui Sancto.
Amen.

The text repetitions show Beatus vir used repeatedly as a refrain, particularly in the first several verses of the psalm. From the middle verses onward, Iocundus homo serves as the refrain, though Beatus vir returns in the eighth and ninth verses. In memoria aeterna erit iustus from the sixth verse also recurs in the middle of the eighth and ninth verses. Cozzolani generates one or more questions out of the declarative statements of every verse up to the Gloria Patri. In the Doxology, she mixes the Gloria with the Sicut erat, reinforcing the eternity of the glorification of each member of the Trinity.

Cozzolani’s free manipulation of the text bears witness to her conception of the psalm as a lesson in action and faith rather than merely a succession of verses to be recited in fulfillment of the liturgical requirement of the Office. This dramatic conception of the text finds its echo in the musical setting as well. The principal tonality is A. The two choirs are of equal significance, and while one choir may momentarily be set off against the other, equivalent voices from the two choirs more often pair with one another in imitation or in parallel thirds.

Cozzolani’s basic means of handling the dialogue format is to assign the questions to a solo voice or a pair of voices in the same register in imitation or parallel thirds, and to provide the answers with anywhere from a solo voice to the full choirs. In the first verse, the questions are posed by two tenors (sopranos on Magnificat’s recording) in imitation and in parallel thirds, while the response is given to a trio of two sopranos in parallel thirds supported by an alto. In the second verse, Potens in terra, the questions are asked by a solo bass and the two altos answer in parallel thirds and in imitation. This pairing of tenors and sopranos in the first verse and bass (alto on the recording) and altos in the second is indicative of Cozzolani’s tendency toward systematic organization, especially in voicing, throughout the psalm. In the third verse, Gloria et divitiae, questions in a solo tenor alternate with answers by a solo soprano, and in the fourth verse, Exortum est in tenebris, the pairing is once again a solo bass and two altos, though this time it is the altos that ask the questions and the bass that replies. The fourth verse begins with the solo bass, just as the third verse had begun with a solo soprano.

Matters become more varied in the fifth verse, Iocundus homo, where the solo sopranos alternately intone the questions, while the answer, iocundus homo, constitutes a four-voice refrain utilizing only the three lower registers. In the sixth verse, In memoria aeterna, the questions are voiced by the two lower voices of the first choir, while the responses are sung by the three lower voices of the second choir. The seventh verse, continuing the systematic alternation of voices and choirs, sets the questions in a solo tenor of the second choir and the responses in the full first choir. In the eighth verse, an alto duet asks the questions, answered by sopranos in parallel thirds supported by a tenor and then by a pair of tenors. Finally, in the ninth verse, the question in a solo tenor is answered by both choirs in homophony.

These questions and their replies comprise only part of the musical progress of the psalm, since many passages are simply declarative statements set for anywhere from a solo voice to the entire ensemble. And the structure is complicated by the refrains, which are generally for both choirs. Even these refrains are symptomatic of Cozzolani’s tendency toward systematic organization. The Beatus vir refrain at the end of the second verse repeats the music of the refrain at the end of the first verse, but interchanges the upper three voices with slight modifications. The refrain at the end of the third verse largely repeats the voicing of the version from the first verse, while the refrain for the fourth verse is close to that of the second. The Iocundus homo refrain, on the other hand, is the same each time it returns.

Cozzolani is quite sensitive to the semantics of the text throughout the psalm, and frequently treats it in the manner of a madrigalist. The questions are often couched rhetorically with a rise in pitch at the end. A word such as potens is presented in a rhythmically strong triadic outline (bar26), while cornu exaltabitur (“horn” as a metaphor for strength) imitates the rising fifth of a horn, first in diatonic ascent, and then in triadic outline (bars 251-54). Similarly, Gloria in the phrase Gloria in domo eius, inserted from verse 3 into verse 8, is given numerous rapid reiterations in sequences of rising fourths in imitation of a trumpet call. The words manet in saeculum saeculi in the third verse are presented repeatedly in various two-part imitations, one voice obviously leading the other. Particularly striking is the chromatic descent in the solo bass in the fourth verse at the words misericors & miserator (bars 115-18).

Cozzolani pays particular attention to interpretation of the text in the ninth verse, where the opening words, Peccator videbit, are set homophonically, and uniquely, on F# minor and B minor triads (bars 267-70). The subsequent phrase et irascetur is also set chordally, but in very rhythmically agitated declamation outlining a G major triad (bars 271-72). The word fremet prompts a unique treatment in C major where the basso continuo repeats the root of the chord in static fashion, while the two bass voices leap about the root and fifth, and pairs of other voices move rapidly back and fourth in parallel sixths (bars 282-83). This is as clever a metaphor for the visual image as anything found in Marenzio´s madrigals. As an insert into the ninth verse, Cozzolani combines the words in memoria aeterna erit iustus from the sixth verse with the phrase in aeternum non commovebitur from the end of the fifth verse. While the motive for in memoria aeterna is the same as in verse 6 and its reiteration at bars 248-50, the motive for in aeternum non commovebitur consists of an unchanging reiteration of a single pitch (until the fall of a third on the last two syllables). Thus the musical image of immovability is placed in counterpoint to the eternal memory of the just man (bars 297-303). These and other musical metaphors for words, phrases and concepts in the text are capped off by the Beatus vir and Iocundus homo refrains, both festive in character in their eight-voice homophony. The Beatus vir refrain, the use of triple meter for Iocundus homo, and the parallel treatments of specific words between Cozzolani’s setting and the Beatus vir Primo a 6 from Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituali of 1641 suggest that Cozzolani modeled several aspects of her version on the earlier one by the maestro of St. Mark’s.

Cozzolani’s harmonic palette does not extend widely beyond the principal tonality of A, though there are numerous instances of abrupt harmonic shifts involving chromatic changes, such as from A major to C major. Clear harmonic direction and cadences are often expressed through harmonic and melodic sequences, which constitute a primary structural element in the setting. Of particular interest are the frequent biting dissonances, including successive cadential seconds, the final one comprising a minor second. Even the final cadence involves a striking juxtaposition of c#” against d and d’. There are numerous interruptions of the prevailing duple time by sections in triple meter, sometimes in connection with the celebratory presentation of phrases such as Gloria et divitiae or Iocundus homo (though the refrain on the latter words is in duple meter), and on other occasions simply as another mode of contrast within the overall structural organization.

St. Radegund

Chiara Margarita Cozzolani took vows at the convent of Santa Radegonda in 1619 and remained within the walls of the convent for the rest of her life.  Her sister had entered the convent two years earlier and they joined several aunts as the second generation of the Cozzolani family at the convent. The convent already enjoyed a reputation for its excellent musical establishment, a reputation considerably enhanced by Chiara’s publications in the 1640s.

The convent was dedicated to Santa Radegonda (Saint Radegund), daughter of a Thuringian king that was forced to marry the Frankish king Clothaire I, whom she eventually abandoned, was best known as one of the leading women intellectuals of the early “Dark Ages.” Not long after her birth around 520, Radegund’s father Berthaire was murdered by her uncle, Hermanfred, who then brought up Radegund and her brother, until the Frankish invasion, which led to the defeat and virtual destruction of the Thuringian royal family in 531.

Radegund and her brother were captured by the Frankish King Clothaire I, who carried them off, as spoils of war, to his royal estate near Athies, where Radegund remained until she was aged eighteen. Then, despite a vain attempt at flight, she was taken by Clothaire to his court at Soissons to be his queen. Radegund was reluctant to marry Clothaire, partly because of his brutal and dissolute character, but also on account of to her resistance to the married state itself, an early sign of her attraction to a monastic vocation. She eventually consented to the wedding (c.540), but continued to lead an austere and devout existence, thus goading Clothaire to fury. She used the revenues of the lands she was granted at her wedding to found hospices and do other charitable work on behalf of the poor. One such hospice, dedicated to Saint Radegund, still exists at Athies.

She left Clothaire in 550 after learning that he had murdered her brother and later founded the Convent of Our Lady of Poitiers, which became a center for learning and scholarship. The nuns, though strictly forbidden to leave the convent, were required to be able to read and write, and devoted several hours of the day to reading the scriptures and copying manuscripts, as well as to such traditionally female tasks as weaving and needlework. In her last years, Radegund took her habitual practice of asceticism still further. She shut herself off from the day-to-day life of the convent, and isolated herself in a walled-up cell, where she devoted her hours to prayer and meditation. She died on 13th August 587.

This post is adapted from a more comprehensive article by Alex Perkins that can be read here.

June 10-13, 2010

Magnificat has been invited to perform a program of Cozzolani motets as a featured concert on the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition this June. The concert will mark the release of the first volume of our recordings of Cozzolani’s complete works. Sopranos Catherine Webster, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, and altos Meg Bragle and Jennifer Lane will join with the continuo team of David Tayler and Hanneke van Proosdij for the concert on Friday June 11 at 8:00 at First Congregational Church in Berkeley.

The program will be drawn from Cozzolani’s 1642 collection Concerti Sacri and will include setting of all four Marian antiphons – Ave regina coelorum, Salve, O regina, Alma redemptoris mater, and Regina caeli, laetare. In addition, Magnificat will perform six of her other motets – Colligite, pueri, flores, O mi domine, Obstupiscite, gentes, Regna terrae cantate Deo, Quid, miseri, quis faciamus and Psallite superi.

Magnificat first appeared on the Festival in it’s inaugural year 1990, in a performance with Marion Verbruggen, and was presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society on the 1996 and 2002. At the most recent Festival in 2008, Magnificat joined with several other Bay Area ensembles in memorable performances of Alessandro Striggio’s Missa sopra ‘Ecco sì beato giorno’ under the direction Davitt Moroney.

Magnificat is grateful to all those who have supported the Cozzolani Project and look forward to sharing more of Donna Chiara’s magnificent music at the Festival. Tickets will go on sale the week of March 15. More details will be available soon on Magnificat’s website and this website.

Caravaggio's St. Catherine

The Cozzolani Project’s latest release is the five-voice dialogue for St Catherine of Alexandria, O cæli cives (1650). As in a few other pieces, the ’singing angels’ to whom musical nuns were often compared, form one side of this dialogue, while two low voices represent the faithful on earth.

In his seminal work on the music of Milan’s convents, Celestial Sirens, Robert Kendrick suggests that O cæli cives may have been originally composed in 1649 for the feast day of her convent’s patron saint, Radegund, whose name scans in Latin like Catherine’s. Kendrick notes “the poetic conceit of the dialogue, which features humans (soprano and mezzo-soprano on Magnificat’s recording) asking angels (three sopranos – two sopranos and mezzo-soprano on the recording) for the saint’s resting-place immediately after her death, was described in Agostino Lampugnani’s Della vita di S. Radegonda (Milan, 1649).”

Peterzano's painting in S. Maria della Passione in Milan

The imagery in the text is similar to that in Simone Peterzano’s painting The Mystic Marriage of Alexandria with Sts. Radegund and Justina of Padua [ca. 1585], formerly the high alterpiece in the chiesa esteriore of the convent of S. Radegonda, now preserved in S. Maria della Passione in Milan.Kendrick notes the parallels between the commissioning of such paintings and the dedications in motet compositions by nuns:

“The emphasis on the patron(ess) saint or Marian iconography found in such paintings would echo the themes of the early motet dedications to nuns; ultimately it reflected the devotional life of patrician families. Sanctoral cults mirrored and provided a public focus for the civic religion of aristocratic clans in early modern Italy.”

Magnificat’s recording features sopranos Catherine Webster, Andrea Fullington, and mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore as the ‘Angels’ and soprano Jennifer Ellis-Kampani and mezzo-soprano Meg Bragle as ‘The Faithful’. The singers are as always by David Tayler, theorbo and Hanneke van Proosdij, organ.

The two volume complete works of Cozzolani can be pre-ordered at cozzolani.com/subscribe . All those pre-ordering receive free digital downloads of all tracks – those currently available and new tracks as they become available. Please visit cozzolani.com for more information about Cozzolani and these recordings.

First page of Laudate pueri à 6 in the Tenor Primo part book

Magnificat and Musica Omnia are pleased to announce the release of Cozzolani’s second setting of the psalm Laudate pueri (à 6), one of only two of her works that call for obbligato instruments in addition to voices and basso continuo. Like her setting of Laudate Dominum for solo soprano, the Laudate pueri à 6 includes parts for two violins.

Laudate Pueri à 6 was published for two sopranos, two tenors, and two violins, Magnificat has recorded the work with four sopranos – Catherine Webster, Ruth Escher, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, and Andrea Fullington. The sopranos are joined by Rob Diggins and Jolianne von Einem, violin, John Dornenburg, violone, David Tayler, theorbo and Hanneke van Proosdij, organ.

The Men in the Booth: Peter Watchorn and Joel Gordon (photo by David Tayler)

Over recent weeks I have been re-discovering the amazing music of Donna Chiara Margarita Cozzolani and the extraordinary talents of the ladies (and a few gentlemen) of Magnificat who brought it all to life. It seems hardly possible that the first of these recordings took place a decade ago, beginning in August 2000, marking one of Musica Omnia’s very first projects (We began recording Jaap Schroeder and Penelope Crawford’s Atlantis Ensemble the same year.)

Having released two “liturgical” versions of a fairly hefty sampling of Cozzolani’s music from both 1642 and the grander collection of 1650, we are now finally mining the remaining wealth of material that we captured and preserved all those years ago in order to realize our original goal of presenting all the surviving music by this wonderful and unique composer, who for me exemplifies the second generation of composers of the Italian Baroque.

I can recall the atmosphere of friendly camaraderie between all the performers and their good-natured acceptance of myself as newly appointed (and relatively inexperienced) producer, fortunate to be working with the highly experienced (and fantastic) engineer/co-producer Joel Gordon, who created the “sound” for Musica Omnia and has continued to develop it right up to most recent release – our 30th. And working with Magnificat and Warren Stewart was a great joy – and an education. And, how great it was to simply spend time in the beautiful Bay Area.

I remember being amazed at the virtuosity of the singers, the imagination of the continuo team and the visionary direction of Warren Stewart, who radiated scholarship, practical knowledge and committed enthusiasm for this music with every gesture. It’s also great to recall the special sound created by having SATB music sung entirely by women, recreating the sounds that must have enlivened Chiara Margarita’s convent in Milan, spreading its fame far and wide. And what a cast: Catherine Webster, Meg Bragle, Jennifer Ellis Kampani, Karen Clark, Jennifer Lane, Deborah Rentz-Moore, Ruth Escher, Suzanne Jubenville, Andrea Fullington, Elizabeth Anker and Linda Liebschutz. Not to mention the exemplary continuo support of Hanneke van Proosdij, David Tayler and John Dornenburg.

A page from the recording session logs from August 2001. (click to enlarge)

Going over the session logs and recorded material has been fascinating – and illuminating – after this long passage of time. As producer I’ve (thankfully) become a lot more economical and efficient in the decade since we began this venture. It’s almost embarrassing to see (or hear) how much material I made the singers record, just to be sure we had it all in the can before departing! Still, better too much than too little, I guess.

And what music: the Dixit Dominus, Gloria in altissimis, Surgamus omnes, the Magnificats, the two settings of Laudate pueri, Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus… Not to mention the exquisite Messa a 4 of 1642, particularly the Agnus Dei – so simple yet so enchanting. All masterpieces. It will be interesting to hear them presented as part of their respective collections (Concerti sacri from 1642 and Salmi a Otto Voci from 1650) rather than in the context of a liturgy. And it’s a great tribute to how much the group had already accomplished that these early recordings still maintain the group’s present-day high standards (and our own), while retaining the freshness and wonder of new and recent discovery. It was a special time.

I recall that on one of the “rest” days, I dragged co-founder and guiding light of this project and the Musica Omnia label David Fox’s beautiful Ruckers copy harpsichord by Walter Burr into St. Stephen’s church in Belvedere and recorded (in about 6 hours) a CD of Tudor & Jacobean music. It was amazing to revert (as performer) to the restraint of the late Renaissance after inhabiting (as producer) the world of Cozzolani, whose music takes the Baroque ideal of idiosyncratic word-painting to its outer limit. The resulting CD set became another of our earliest releases and, like the Cozzolani Vespers, one of our most successful.

It’s nice to think that we’re finally completing this important pioneering project and that we will have a tenth anniversary reunion back at the original scene of the crime this June.

There’s (much) more to come, so stay tuned!

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.

Click to listen and download!

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.

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.