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Lamentatio was featured on Primo Movimento on 1 June 2017. The broadcast is documented on Ensemble del Giglio’s official press page.
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Da Vinci Classics
Ensemble Del Giglio, Livio Cavallo, Luca Cerelli
Physical and Digital Release: 15 December 2016
Ensemble del Giglio and Livio Cavallo place Victoria's Tenebrae Responsories alongside Andrea Baudino's Drere II for solo clarinet, performed by Luca Cerelli, bringing Renaissance sacred polyphony into dialogue with a contemporary instrumental voice.
13.67€
Lamentatio · Tomás Luis de Victoria, Antonio Lotti, Andrea Baudino · 18 tracks
Timings refer to the digital edition. Responsory numbering differs between the complete Officium and the eighteen Tenebrae responsories.
Luca Cerelli (b. 1979) graduated with honours in clarinet in 2000 and received the award for the best graduates at Frosinone Conservatory. In 2006, he obtained his degree in clarinet with full marks, followed in 2009 by the two-year qualification in instrumental clarinet teaching. He continued his training with F. Meloni, C. Palermo and P. Messina.
He has collaborated with symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras and wind orchestras. For many years, he has worked with the Sicut Lilium choir and Ensemble del Giglio as a clarinettist and saxophonist. His chamber performances include duos with piano, trios with piano and viola, and collaborations with groups such as the Taag Quartet. He has performed in a duo with pianist Clara Dutto, in repertoire ranging from classical music to jazz and South American music. Alongside studies in piano and composition, he pursues his interest in jazz and Latin American music through collaborations with various groups.
Ensemble del Giglio is a vocal and instrumental group whose membership varies according to the programme and artistic requirements. It belongs to the Associazione Sicut Lilium in Beinette, Cuneo, Italy. Its repertoire ranges from Renaissance and Baroque music to twentieth-century and contemporary works. The ensemble has commissioned and premiered motets by several composers, as well as Andrea Baudino’s oratorio Qoèlet, and has performed in Italy and France.
Its singers have explored widely differing repertoires in various formations, both as ensemble members and as soloists, in professional and amateur groups in Italy and abroad. In October 2016, Ensemble del Giglio won first prize in the ensemble category at the seventh Lake Maggiore National Choral Competition.
Livio Cavallo (b. 1973) studied piano at Cuneo Conservatory, Renaissance music and singing at the Saluzzo School of Advanced Musical Studies with Kees Boeke, and choral conducting on courses in Sommariva Bosco with Claudio Chiavazza and Elena Camoletto. He also studied singing with Giuseppe Maletto, Marco Farinella, Roberto Colombatto, Phillip Peterson and Barbara Zanichelli.
As a tenor, he has worked in Italy, France and Slovenia with ensembles including Cantica Symphonia, Il Falcone, NovAntiqua, Gli Affetti Musicali and the Ruggero Maghini Philharmonic Choir, and has sung with Academia Montis Regalis and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted first performances of music by Sergio Sentinelli, Bruno Gallizio, Maero and Andrea Baudino, and has worked with Baroque orchestras.
He founded the mixed choir Sicut Lilium and the vocal group Ensemble del Giglio, which have received awards at the thirteenth Regional Choral Competition in Cannobio, the seventh and ninth Lake Maggiore National Competitions, the San Colombano International Competition in Piacenza and the Arezzo National Polyphonic Competition. He established the Rassegna corale Madonna della Pieve in 2001 and Sentieri di Musica in 2004, and founded the Piccola Scuola di Musica in Beinette in 2010.
Andrea Baudino (b. Cuneo, 1979) is an Italian composer, violinist and teacher. He completed violin studies at the G. F. Ghedini Conservatory in Cuneo in 2001 and subsequently graduated with full marks in composition and counterpoint under Paolo Minetti. He further studied with Alberto Colla at the Accademia Perosi in Biella, graduating in 2008, and attended Fabio Vacchi’s composition courses at Villa Ca’ Zenobio in Treviso.
His music has been performed by soloists and ensembles including Rocco Parisi, Håkon Austbø, Massimiliano Damerini, the Xenakis Quartet, the Quartetto di Cremona and Arsenale Ensemble. His awards include first prize at Contemporaneamente in 2006, and he was a finalist at the Seghizzi competition in 2007. His catalogue includes Drere II for solo clarinet and the oratorio Qoèlet.
Antonio Lotti (c.1666–1740) was an Italian composer and organist closely associated with Venice. He studied with Giovanni Legrenzi and served at the Basilica of San Marco as a singer and organist, becoming its maestro di cappella in 1736. Alongside sacred music for San Marco, he wrote motets, choral works and oratorios for Venetian institutions, including the Ospedale degli Incurabili.
His operatic career began in Venice in 1693. Between 1717 and 1719, he worked in Dresden, where his operas included Giove in Argo and Teofane. After returning to Venice, he concentrated on sacred music. His output combines contrapuntal writing with expressive harmonic and melodic invention; his settings of the Crucifixus remain particularly well known.
Tomás Luis de Victoria: (b Avila, 1548; d Madrid, 20 Aug 1611). Spanish composer and organist partly active in Italy. He was not only the greatest Spanish Renaissance composer but also one of the greatest composers of church music of his day in Europe, who has been admired above all for the intensity of some of his motets and of his Offices for the Dead and for Holy Week.
Lamentatio Album notes by Livio Cavallo. Translation by Livio Cavallo; original English revision by Phillip Peterson. The late Renaissance, represented by Tomás Luis de Victoria, is placed alongside contemporary music by Andrea Baudino. The starting point for this combination lies in the very conception of Baudino’s Drere II: ancient material is reworked through contrapuntal techniques shared by Victoria’s responsories and the music of his period, but given a distinctly contemporary style and aesthetic. The connection between Drere II and earlier music is explicit and deliberate. Andrea Baudino, a violinist, composer…
Album notes by Livio Cavallo. Translation by Livio Cavallo; original English revision by Phillip Peterson.
The late Renaissance, represented by Tomás Luis de Victoria, is placed alongside contemporary music by Andrea Baudino. The starting point for this combination lies in the very conception of Baudino’s Drere II: ancient material is reworked through contrapuntal techniques shared by Victoria’s responsories and the music of his period, but given a distinctly contemporary style and aesthetic.
The connection between Drere II and earlier music is explicit and deliberate. Andrea Baudino, a violinist, composer and teacher from the province of Cuneo in northwestern Italy, explains:
“The title DRERE indicates a path, a dreamlike walk along hills, ridges and forests, through village festivals in the valleys and the silences of the high mountains. Rather than a destination, ‘drere’ is the path, the track an animal leaves as it moves uphill, among low grass, earth and rocks. […] The idea of a track is understood metaphorically here as the starting point for a journey that is both poetic and mathematical, communicative and hermetic, dreamlike and considered. […] Each piece is organised around a numerical series of sounds drawn from different sources, from folk song to sixteenth-century sacred and liturgical chant. […] In DRERE II for solo clarinet, the material comes specifically from the repertoire of Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa. The piece has three parts: ‘Chanto’, an Alpine-Provençal song with glimpses of a distant madrigal for several voices; ‘Nel mezzo’, a short fantasia serving as an intermezzo; and ‘RaG-suald’, a ragtime that revisits Gesualdo’s harmonies. […]”
The sound of these three pieces for solo clarinet was decisive in bringing ancient and contemporary music together: a ‘dreamlike walk’ in which references to remote places and timeless landscapes seem to accumulate. The musical lines, like a ‘track’ through ‘earth and rock’, appear to alternate between different voices, even within the sonic possibilities of a single instrument.
The resulting emotional effect resembles the atmosphere of suspended time, otherness and reflection that Victoria’s Holy Week responsories evoke in listeners today.
Lastly, there is the question of balance. Victoria’s innovative abilities enabled him to achieve, particularly in these responsories, an admirable balance between harmonic ‘verticality’ and horizontal melodic counterpoint.
Although Baudino’s Drere II employs comparable contrapuntal techniques and similar harmonic and formal foundations, its play of references and balances pushes beyond those limits, reaching more ‘extreme’ or, so to speak, ‘unbalanced’ results.
This musical dialogue about balance and its breaking point serves to amplify and express the pain, anguish and tragedy articulated in the ancient texts of the Tenebrae responsories through the remarkable polyphonic and harmonic interweaving of the Spanish composer’s music.
Two emblematic pieces frame this musical journey, representing the genius of the Spanish master on the one hand and one of the finest achievements of Baroque vocal polyphony on the other: Victoria’s psalm for double choir and Lotti’s Crucifixus for eight voices.
Lotti’s famous Crucifixus, from the Credo in F, was probably composed during his Venetian period, before 1717. Here it provides a dramatic and solemn opening to the penitential journey traced by the responsories.
Victoria’s psalm Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum, an example of his often undervalued innovations in writing for double choir, concludes the programme as a seal of blessing.
The liturgy of the Western Catholic Church developed over a thousand years through a gradual and elaborate process. It has two principal divisions: the Eucharistic liturgy, or Mass, and the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office. The latter comprises prayers for the various times of day, the ‘hours’, collected in the Roman Breviary.
One of these was Matins, traditionally recited after midnight in remembrance of the hour of Christ’s birth. It was divided into three nocturns, each consisting of three psalms, three lessons—readings from the Bible or the writings of the Church Fathers—and three responsories. The number three clearly symbolises the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
The Office of Tenebrae, or Officium Tenebrarum, was the solemn office associated with the Sacred Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Its name refers both to the time of its celebration and to the darkness that fell upon the earth at Christ’s death. It also evokes the darkness of death itself and the image of the Church groping in the dark without its God. The bare, unadorned church conveyed a profound sense of sorrow.
Sung after the lessons, the responsories returned to their texts, reworking them in a free and lyrical form. This is a particularly intense moment of prayer: poetry and music merge, enabling the faithful to make the text their own, experience it and meditate upon it. The verses, marked V, are short, simple and effective; the repeated response that follows helps the formula to be remembered.
During Tenebrae, the church was shrouded in gloom. To the left of the altar stood a triangular candle stand, traditionally called a hearse, with fifteen candles: seven on each side and one at the top. These represented the eleven faithful apostles, the three Marys and Jesus, represented by the highest candle. A candle was extinguished after each psalm. The last was left burning and hidden behind the altar to symbolise the burial of the Lord, without extinguishing hope. The other lights were put out in mourning for the death of the true Light.
At the end of the ceremony, the Liber Usualis, the collection of Gregorian chant used before the Second Vatican Council, prescribed a brief noise or tumult: Sit fragor et strepitus aliquantulum. Those present made a noise by clapping, striking their breviaries against the benches or using traditional wooden instruments, recalling the upheaval that shook the earth when the Lord died. Silence followed; the candle left burning behind the altar was returned to the hearse, and everyone departed.
The booklet notes that this liturgy continued to be celebrated in various parts of Italy, sometimes with variations in the readings, psalms or furnishings, such as a stand with thirteen candles or candles placed on the altar.
Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548–1611), one of the greatest Spanish composers of the Counter-Reformation, devoted his surviving output to sacred music. His responsories have the intensity of paintings by his contemporary Caravaggio, expressing the drama of the Passion and betrayal with vivid, direct accents. Victoria treats suffering with profound dramatic involvement, shaping musical expression according to the words themselves. His Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, published in Rome in 1585, is among his most inspired works, while remaining closely faithful to liturgical practice in its form.
For a late Renaissance composer such as Victoria, who composed no madrigals, the variety of the narrative and the wealth of detail in the responsories provide numerous opportunities for word-painting and for describing states of mind ranging from the tragic to the contemplative. He sets intense passages with great effectiveness, yet also writes deeply inspired music where the text offers no obvious starting point.
The strength of Victoria’s responsories lies in the balance between words and music. A skilful balance of harmony and melodic fragments enables him to heighten the force of the text.
For Cavallo, this musical language, with its close attention to the words, became less prominent as Baroque styles developed and has again become an objective for contemporary composers. Although a restrained style has appealed to many composers, expressing oneself clearly requires, in music too, complete clarity about what one intends to communicate. Victoria remains a model in this respect.
In approaching music so distant in time, Ensemble del Giglio seeks to convey the composer’s spirit and intentions while remaining attentive to the lessons of historical performance practice. The decision to entrust the altus part to both male and female voices aims to combine the brilliance of the male voice with the softness of the female timbre in a harmonious blend within that register.
Fully aware of the arguments against doing so, the ensemble chose to transpose Tenebrae factae sunt and Aestimatus sum an octave lower for male voices. In this instance, the performers considered the advantages more compelling: the choice lends variety and allows the vocal timbre to intensify the gravity of the text.
Recorded on 1–2 November 2014 at the Church of St Teresa, known as the Chiesa delle Teresiane, in the Institute of St Teresa, Mondovì, Cuneo, Italy. Microphone placement and recording: Alberto Compagnone. Musical supervision: Elena Basso. Digital editing, mastering, texts and translations: Livio Cavallo. Original English revision: Phillip Peterson. ℗ and © Da Vinci Classics.
Ensemble del Giglio, directed by Livio Cavallo. Sopranos: Sveva Martin, Eleonora Briatore, Laura Dho. Altos: Claudia Cucchi, Clara Giordano, Fabrizio Nasali. Tenors: Livio Cavallo, Massimiliano Mantovan, Phillip Peterson. Basses: Manuel Frontera, Silvestro Roatta. Solo clarinet: Luca Cerelli.
Cover: the 1472 fresco of the Flagellation of St Florent in the Church of San Fiorenzo, Bastia Mondovì, Cuneo. Photograph by Aldo Clerico, courtesy of the Associazione Culturale San Fiorenzo.
Latin texts and the English translations included in the original booklet. Translations by Livio Cavallo; original English revision by Phillip Peterson.
Latin
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato:
Passus, et sepultus est.
English
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate:
He suffered and was buried.
Latin
Amicus meus osculi me tradidit signo:
“Quem osculatus fuero, ipse est, tenete eum”:
hoc malum fecit signum,
qui per osculum adimplevit homicidium.
* Infelix prætermisit pretium sanguinis,
et in fine laqueo se suspendit.
V: Bonum erat ei,
si natus non fuisset homo ille.
English
My friend betrayed me by a kiss:
“He whom I kiss, that is he: hold him fast”.
He gave this wicked sign
who committed murder by a kiss.
* The unhappy wretch returned the price of blood
and in the end hanged himself.
V: It had been better for that man
if he had never been born.
Latin
Iudas mercator pessimus osculo petiit Dominum:
ille ut agnus innocens non negavit Iudæ osculum:
* Denariorum numero Christum Iudæis tradidit.
V: Melius illi erat, si natus non fuisset.
English
Judas, the vile merchant, required a kiss from the Lord
who, like an innocent lamb, did not deny the kiss to Judas.
* For a few denari (pences), he betrayed Christ to the Jews.
V: It would have been better for him, had he not been born.
Latin
R: Unus ex discipulis meis tradit me hodie:
Væ illi per quem tradar ego:
* Melius illi erat si natus non fuisset.
V: Qui intingit mecum manum in paropside,
hic me traditurus est, in manus peccatorum.
English
R: One of my disciples will betray me today.
Woe to him by whom I am betrayed:
* It were better for him had he never been born.
V: He that dips his hand with me in the dish,
Is he who will give me up into the hands of sinners.
Latin
Eram quasi agnus innocens:
ductus sum ad immolandum, et nesciebam:
consilium fecerunt inimici mei adversum me, dicentes:
* “Venite, mittamus lignum in panem eius
et eradamus eum de terra viventium”.
V: Omnes inimici mei
adversum me cogitabant mala mihi:
verbum iniquum mandaverunt adversum me, dicentes:
English
Behold, I was like an innocent lamb;
I was led to the sacrifice, and I knew it not.
My enemies have conspired together against me, saying:
* Come, let us put poison into his bread,
And let us cut him off out of the land of the living.
V: All my enemies
have thought evil things about me;
They have spoken evil words against me, saying:
Latin
“Tamquam ad latronem existis
cum gladiis et fustibus comprehendere me:
* Quotidie apud vos eram in templo docens,
et non me tenuistis:
et ecce flagellatum ducitis ad crucifigendum.”
V: Cumque iniecissent manus in Iesum,
et tenuissent eum, dixit ad eos:
English
“You come as against a robber
with swords and clubs to apprehend me:
* I was daily with you in the temple teaching
and you did not arrest me;
and behold you lead me to scourging and to be crucified.”
V: They laid hands on Jesus
and held him fast, He said to them:
Latin
Tenebræ factæ sunt,
Dum crucifixissent Iesum Iudæi:
et circa horam nonam exclamavit Iesus voce magna:
Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?
* Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.
V: Exclamans Iesus voce magna ait:
Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.
English
Darkness fell
when the Jews crucified Jesus:
and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice:
My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
* And bowing his head, yielded up the spirit.
V: Jesus, crying with a loud voice said:
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
Latin
Iesum tradidit impius
summis principibus sacerdotum,
et senioribus populi:
* Petrus autem sequebatur eum a longe,
ut videret finem.
V: Adduxerunt autem eum ad Caipham
principem sacerdotum,
ubi scribæ et pharisæi convenerant.
English
The wicked man betrayed Jesus
to the chief priests
and the elders of the people:
* Peter, however, followed him from a distance,
to see the end.
V: They led him to Caiaphas
the high priest,
where the scribes and Pharisees had gathered.
Latin
R: Caligaverunt oculi mei a fletu meo:
quia elongatus est a me qui consolabatur me:
Videte, omnes populi
* si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.
V: O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam,
attendite et videte.
English
R: My eyes are darkened by my tears:
For he is far from me that comforted me:
See, O all ye people,
* if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
V: O all ye that pass by,
behold and see.
Latin
O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam,
attendite, et videte
* si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.
V: Attendite universi populi,
et videte dolorem meum.
English
O all ye that pass by the way,
behold and see:
* if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
V: Behold, all ye people,
and see my sorrow.
Latin
R: Ecce quomodo moritur iustus,
et nemo percipit corde:
et viri iusti tolluntur, et nemo considerat:
a facie iniquitatis sublatus est iustus:
* Et erit in pace memoria eius.
V: Tamquam agnus coram tondente se obmutuit, et non aperuit os suum:
de angustia, et de iudicio sublatus est.
English
Behold how the righteous man dies
And no one understands.
Righteous men are taken away and no one considers:
The righteous man has been taken away from present iniquity
* And his memory shall be in peace.
V: As a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he opened not his mouth:
he was taken out of trouble and of judgement.
Latin
Astiterunt reges terræ,
et principes convenerunt in unum,
* Adversus Dominum et adversus Christum eius.
V: Quare fremuerunt Gentes
et populi meditati sunt inania?
English
The kings of the earth stand up,
and the rulers take counsel together
* against the Lord, and against his Christ.
V: Why did the heathen rage?
and the peoples plot in vain?
Latin
Æstimatus sum cum descendentibus in lacum:
* Factus sum sicut homo sine adiutorio,
inter mortuos liber.
V: Posuerunt me in lacu inferiori,
in tenebrosis, et in umbra mortis.
English
I am counted with them that go down into the pit:
* I am as a man that hath no strength,
free among the dead.
V: Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,
in darkness, and in the shadow of death.
Latin
R: Sepulto Domino, signatum est monumentum,
volventes lapidem ad ostium monumenti:
* Ponentes milites, qui custodirent illum.
V: Accedentes principes sacerdotum ad Pilatum,
petierunt illum.
English
The Lord being buried, the tomb was sealed
By rolling a stone across the door,
* And soldiers were placed to guard it.
V: The chief priests went to Pilate
and petitioned him.
Latin
Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum,
omnes servi Domini.
Qui statis in domo Domini,
in atriis domus Dei nostri.
In noctibus extollite manus vestras in sancta,
et benedicite Dominum.
Benedicat te Dominus ex Sion,
qui fecit cælum et terram.
Gloria Patri, et Filio,
et Spiritui sancto;
Sicut erat in principio,
et nunc, et semper,
et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
English
Behold now, praise the Lord:
all ye servants of the Lord.
Ye that stand in the house of the Lord,
even in the courts of the house of our God.
In the night lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and praise the Lord.
May the Lord bless you out of Sion
who made heaven and earth.
Glory to the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning,
now and always,
and forever. Amen.
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RAI Radio 3 · Primo Movimento
Lamentatio was featured on Primo Movimento on 1 June 2017. The broadcast is documented on Ensemble del Giglio’s official press page.
Explore the broadcast ↗ - RAI Radio 3 · Primo Movimento
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