| Emilio de’ Cavalieri, whose career was closely linked with the early Baroque ideal of ‘reciting in music’ died exactly four centuries ago. As commemorative events have been infrequent in 2002 (and it must be remembered that Cavalli was born the same year that Cavalieri died), any celebration of the composer comes as a welcome special event. Cavalieri’s life and work coincided with the dawn of the oratorio, and his Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo was performed for the first time in 1600. This work, which can be described as almost archetypal, foreshadowed a new genre, the oratorio, which would determine new modes of behaviour, and become fashionable in Seicento Rome. |
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