Cremona, 2025
This Week in Classical Music: June 2, 2025. Cremona. In our newest Italian travels, we encountered a number of musically vital cities, and Cremona is considered one of them. Cremona is considerably uncommon on this respect. As a rule, music flourished on the courts of the highly effective dukes, because it did within the neighboring Mantua beneath the Gonzagas. Cremona by no means had a prince: throughout its lengthy and turbulent historical past, it fought many enemies, belonged to totally different events (the Guelfs, the supporters of the Pope, and typically to the Ghibellines, the allies of the Holy Roman Emperor) and at totally different instances was occupied by the Duchy of Milan, the Genovese Republic, the French and the Spanish. And for some time, it was an impartial commune, led by Capitano del Popolo. One factor it by no means had was a considerable courtroom. Subsequently, music-making was concentrated on the Cathedral, the Duomo. We should say that the Duomo is magnificent, among the best examples of Romanesque structure in Northern Italy. Subsequent to the Duomo stands the Torrazzo, the tallest pre-modern campanile (bell tower) in Italy and Cremona’s image. On the opposite facet is the Baptistry. The cathedral was initially constructed within the 12th century within the then-current Romanesque fashion however was enlarged within the subsequent centuries, buying many Renaissance components. It’s adorned with many fantastic sculptures, some relationship again to the 12th century. The Torrazzo has 500 steps, and should you courageous them, you’ll be rewarded with a beautiful view from the highest.
Marc’Antonio Ingegneri was an important composer to function the Maestro di Cappella on the Duomo, although we also needs to point out the Bishop, Nicolò Sfondrato, later Pope Gregory XIV, who was instrumental in selling music and humanities within the metropolis. Ingegneri was born in Verona someday round 1535 and moved to Cremona within the late 1560s. This was the time of the Counter-Reformation, and one of many circumstances imposed by the Council of Trent, which produced the Counter-Reformation program, was that the phrases in Latin lots needed to be legible. This, as we all know, nearly killed the polyphonic mass, which survived due to Palestrina’s mastery. Ingegneri labored within the fashion of Palestrina (a few of his work was even attributed, incorrectly, to the nice Roman). Right here’s Ingegneri’s Salve Regina, carried out by the Choir of Girton School, Cambridge, Gareth Wilson conducting.
However after all, the true fame was delivered to Cremona by its luthiers: Cremona is rightfully thought of the birthplace of the trendy violin. The devices made by the Amati household, Antonio Stradivari, and Giuseppe “del Gesù” Guarneri within the late 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries are nonetheless thought of nonpareil. All the Cremonese violin makers realized from one another: each Stradivari and Guarneri have been pupils of Nicolò Amati, who in flip apprenticed along with his father, Girolamo Amati. Girolamo’s father, Andrea Amati, born in 1505, is taken into account the primary grasp to make a contemporary violin.
Cremona has a beautiful Museo del Violino (Violin Museum). It has a piece devoted to the historical past of string devices and one on violin-making. All of it’s executed in good style. However an important half is the attractive corridor displaying uncommon devices by the Amati household, Stradivari and Guarneri (there are different rooms with lots of of devices, some crucial, for instance, from the luthiers like Francesco Rugeri and Carlo Bergonzi). The museum has a small however lovely auditorium, the place a number of instances a month the magnificent devices from the museum’s assortment are showcased by younger musicians. For a small price, anyone can come and hear. And clearly, the violin-making remains to be flourishing in Cremona: as you stroll the streets of town, you encounter many luthiers’ retailers, a few of them well-known all over the world.