Energy, Marenzio, Galuppi, 2025
This Week in Classical Music: October 13, 2025. Energy, Marenzio, Galuppi. We’ve by no means written about Leonel Energy, the English composer of the early 15th century. He was a modern of John Dunstaple, and it was the 2 of them who produced Contenance Angloise, the English method, a definite fashion of polyphony. Contenance Angloise was influential on the Burgundian courts, then crucial musical heart in Europe. We should always confess that the music of Energy and Dunstaple is the earliest that we will actually take pleasure in. What has been reconstructed of the writing of Léonin and Pérotin, two composers of the Notre-Dame Faculty who labored on the finish of the 12th – early 13th centuries, sounds to us somewhat international, virtually “mathematical,” created for the attention, not the ear. Even the music of Guillaume de Machaut (and we must always write about him, too), as fascinating as it’s, is troublesome to take pleasure in. It’s what the poet Martin Le Franc known as the “candy harmonies” of the English method that makes the music of Energy and Dunstaple a lot extra approachable for the fashionable ear.
We all know little about Energy’s life, which isn’t shocking contemplating the period; musicologists can’t even decide the last decade he was born in: guesses vary from 1370 to 1385. From modern paperwork, we all know that he served as an teacher of choristers within the family chapel of Thomas, Duke of Clarence (Thomas died in 1421). In 1423, he was admitted to the fraternity of Christ Church, Canterbury (we all know it because the Canterbury Cathedral). Later, he served because the choirmaster of the cathedral. Within the cathedral’s paperwork, he was known as by an honorific, Esquire. The date of his demise is documented as June 5th of 1445. Right here’s a motet Ibo michi ad montem (I’ll go to the mountain). It’s carried out by the Hilliard Ensemble.
Two different composers of the previous had been additionally born this week, Luca Marenzio and Baldassare Galuppi. Marenzio, probably the most essential madrigalists of the late Renaissance, was born on October 18th, the query being whether or not in 1553 or 1554. The Marenzios, a poor household, lived in Lombardy in a small city close to Brescia. Luca was in all probability educated on the Brescia Cathedral. In 1568, he went to Mantua, the place he served on the courtroom of the Gonzagas. After transferring to Rome, Marenzio served, for about 10 years, on the courtroom of Cardinal Luigi d’Este. He later went to Florence and labored on the courtroom of Ferdinando I de’ Medici. His madrigals grew to become recognized throughout Italy and in Europe. Right here, from 1580, is one among them, Dolorosi martir. Concerto Italiano is led by Rinaldo Alessandrini.
Baldassare Galuppi was additionally born on October 18th, 1706, on the island of Burano, close to Venice. A well-liked composer, he traveled extensively, visiting London and St. Petersburg. You may learn extra about him right here. Galuppi wrote greater than 100 operas, many to the librettos of Metastasio and the playwright Carlo Goldoni. Right here’s an aria from Galuppi’s opera La diavolessa. The mezzo Kremena Dilcheva is supported by the Lautten Compagney orchestra underneath the path of Wolfgang Katschner.