NEWS

go to the page > education > Istituto Franci

Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali "Rinaldo Franci"
Istituzione di Alta Formazione Artistica e Musicale - Siena

I l  R o s s i g n o l o
early music on period instruments

historical performance

early music 2009 - 2010

___________________________________________________________

Il Rossignolo is an ensemble which studies and performs early music on period instruments. It was founded by flautists Marica Testi, Martino Noferi and harpsichordist conductor Ottaviano Tenerani. They play works from the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, reviving authentic styles of performance. Rossignolo members give recitals as soloists as well as concerts and recordings with prestigious Renaissance and Baroque music groups. They also carry out musicology research and publish music history studies and rediscovered early music.
Il Rossignolo recorded the first complete collection of Madrigals and Canzonette by Orazio Caccini (first recording in the world - EMA 1998) and is now recording early Eighteenth century Italian music for Tactus and CPO. The group is also working on music by Telemann, Pepusch and Handel. The instruments and instrumentalists vary according to programme and performance style.   

Il Rossignolo follows two strands in its approach to the history of music, instruments and performance styles.
One strand is the study of composers considered minor or of limitedinterest, whose work has hitherto attracted little interest. These have often proved to be surprising. As a second strand, they also study lesser known works by more famous composers. The underlying conviction is that is that knowledge of a historical period is limited when it is approached through a few often-repeated examples of the same music, which may be sporadic or isolated output from the period. A period can be studied more fully through the talents expressed by the overall continuous context, which was already of a very high technical and artistic level.
Recording music for Tactus and EMA in Italy and CPO in Germany, the group chose works with these aims in mind. The rediscovery of lesser known composers led to a revival of the works of Orazio Caccini (Madrigali et canzonette a cinque voci - Choice Early Music Rewiew), G.B. Martini (Sinfonie da camera - Best CD, The Classic Voice, May 2002) and G.B. Sammartini (Notturni a Quattro - …Performed by top players, this is a marvellous disc! Classica). The search for lesser known works by famous composers led to Alessandro Scarlatti (Concerti e sinfonie - Outstanding entertainment, Concerto), Antonio Vivaldi (Concerti per violino et organo - by Il Rossignolo, one of modern Italy’s finest Early Music ensembles, playing authentic instruments, AllegroMusic.com), the Sonatas Op. 2 and solo harpsichord works by Benedetto Marcello (…an enthralling interpretation; This is what I expect from an Italian performance of Italian music - Musicweb International)

Future recordings are to be of works by Georg Friedrich Handel and the cantatas for solo voice with wind instrument obbligati by Alessandro Scarlatti. Recently a great deal of hard work has been devoted to Handel’s Aci, Galatea and Polifemo (1708) in collaboration with the costume designer and historical researcher Alessio Rosati. This production was staged at Theatre dei Rinnovati in Siena. Another recent revival was the first performance in modern times of Alessandro Scarlatti’s  La Caduta de’ Decemviri at the Theatre dei Differenti for the Barga Opera Festival in 2004 and at the Theatre dei Rozzi in Siena October 2004, exactly three hundred years after it was first performed there in 1704.

Recent concert engagements included two harpsichord concerts on the Fleischer instrument at the Stibbert Museum in Florence as part of the centenary celebrations for Frederick Stibber. There was also the first ever revival of Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratory “Il Trionfo della Santissima Vergine Assunta in Cielo” at the Theatre della Pergola for Amici della Musica di Firenze, and Festival Contemporaneamente Barocco (Siena).

Il Rossignolo is housed in the Teatro dei Rozzi and Teatro dei Rinnovati, both in Siena, as Residence Ensemble.