Concerts

CONCERT PROGRAM:

Poetesses, Poets and Jongleurs of Italy

A musical journey that leads to the discovery of early Italian vernacular poetry. Drawing on medieval manuscript sources and on popular folk musical modes from the 12th century to our days, the Murmur Mori ensemble set these fundamental lyrics to music in order to reconstruct the sonorous atmosphere and to spread the history of the first Italian vernacular poetesses, poets and music performers. 

From the Canzoniere Vaticano latino 3793 the malmaritata poem "A la stagion che'l mondo foglia e fiora" by “La Compiuta Donzella di Firenze" exponent of the Tuscan school or the "Contrasto d'Amore": a type of tenso of the Sicilian school between two lovers, in which the woman compares her lover to a sparrowhawk, once bounded to her love but now flying over another maiden's garden, the man answers begging for her mercy and incites her to avoid rumors from who wants to disturb their joy. "Danza Mantovana" (Dança de Mai) is an example of folk poetry intended to accompany dance, and it's contained inside the ms. Franc. (Nouv. Acq.) 7516 from the 13th century. This manuscript, preserved in the National Library of France, contains the chivalric poem Partonopeus de Blois, and these mantuan rhymes written at the very last few pages as a note, in which there's a description of the rota (a round dance) survived to our days embodied in the Sardinian ballu tundu. On April 26, 1265, the two Bolognese Jovial Friars Catalano de 'Malavolti and Loderingo degli Andalò, whom Dante places in the pit of the hypocrites in his Inferno, set up the Officium Memorialium in Bologna which produced 322 registers of notary deeds in which inside the notaries also transcribed colorful rhymes in the vernacular and jongleur poetry of a popular nature, such as the 13th century ballata “Pur bii del vin, comadre”, set to music by the ensemble. The rhymes depict the adventures of two women who wander drinking around taverns cursing the sailors who carry cargo of linen, for them to spin and weave, instead of wine. The lexicon is Emilian and contains the oldest evidence of the term "lasagne". Lyrics handed down to us without musical notation, although their structure witness that were conceived with music and for the dance, such as "Seguramente vegna a la nostra dança" and "E•lla mia dona çogliosa", from the libri memorialium of Bologna too, in which we can have a glimpse of how the dance took place. Through this musical path it's impossible not to run into the Clerici Vagantes, wandering scholars known also as goliards, who animated Europe and wrote songs in latin since the 12th century. The ensemble set to music "O Fortuna velut Luna" and "Fortune plango vulnera", two poems from the famous Codex Latinus Monacensis 4660, searching for secular music sonorities close to the goliardic spirit that still exists in Italy as Goliardia. If Arabic poetry could have influenced the Occitan troubadours with Andalusian lyrics and music suggestions it has for sure originated the Sicilian School, then flowed into the Tuscan School, which flourished in the Emirate ground of Sicilian Arab musicians and then of the Norman-Swabian culture. That fertile land of meetings created poets and musicians with renewed creativity and energy who laid the foundations of the Italian vernacular poetic language. Bonagiunta Orbicciani, in our program with “Tutto lo mondo si mantien per fiore” taken from the Canzoniere Laurenziano Rediano 9, who as a notable exponent of 13th century poetry and a man of the medieval communes also addresses politics in his rhymes. He wrote his discontent about the new manner of the stil novo poets that started to distance themselves from the Sicilian School and Provençal poetry. The ballata "Kyrie, kyrie, pregne son le monache" (La ballata delle Monache), preserved in Magliabechiano VII.1078 of the National Central Library of Florence, it's from the beginning of the 15th century and its rhymes satirises about the nuns and their monastic life unexpectedly rich of erotism and sexual encounters. As a one of a kind gem, even if of a later time, "La Giullaressa" witnesses the performance of an anonymous woman on a bench in a square, probably Piazza Maggiore in Bologna from where the incunable containing her sonnets was printed in 1507 (Palatino II.20 E.6.5.3., BNCF), shines the poem from a cantimpanca describing her feelings when she gets on the bench <> to sing and where she defends the power of chant evoking Phoebus and Amphion.

The ensemble has never used the aid of electricity during concerts. The choice stems from the desire to offer an authentic listening that brings the music back to its organic state, also allowing the Murmur Mori ensemble to perform in total freedom, without interposing anything between the music and the audience.

Any place, is it the room of a castle or a wood, can be transformed into the perfect setting for Murmur Mori's music.