The Intrepid Academy's first CD INGANNO is inspired by the “divine and sacred college”, an Accademia at the cultural heart of sixteenth century Venice, where the music was directed by the great Flemish composer Adriaan Willaert. Venice loved Willaert, as much for his modesty and gravity as for the astonishing power of his compositions, lauding him as “prince of music”, and “the new Prometheus”. INGANNO will be the first recording to include all of Willaert’s 1559 three-part ricercars. Supreme and early examples of pure, extended instrumental counterpoint, the ricercars were much admired in their day, and a complete recording is long overdue.
WHY “INGANNO”? The deceptions of Inganno were an integral part of Renaissance arts. Literature took mischievous pleasure in its double-entendre, and drama relished plays in which boy actors played the parts of girls who disguised themselves as boys – one of these plays was actually called l’Ingannati – “The deceived”. In music and the visual arts, inganno was less frivolous. Since Leonardo and Brunelleschi, art had adopted “gli artificiosi inganni de la Perspettiva” (“the artful delights of perspective”), and its ultimate use in trompe l’oeil. In music, inganno was the name given to the ways in which composers, Willaert in particular, disguised melodic imitation in his Ricercars, and used rhythmic displacement in a way which never threatens their serene beauty.
NEXT PROJECT: The New Prometheus
DVD and commentary on Willaert's Musica Nova. Clickherefor more information
