|
Federico Maria Sardelli: “Recording and concert activities are meaningless without musicological research”
|
The ensemble as originally founded by Sardelli was devoted to the performance of medieval music, but three years later he took the decision to supplement it with a Baroque ensemble. “After my experience with medieval music”, Sardelli explains, “I decided to develop a Baroque ensemble. That was in 1987, the year of the anniversary of Lully’s death. That gave me the opportunity to present, for the first time in the modern period, his Ballet des Saisons, which was performed in Livorno with great pomp in the open air with 25 musicians playing on a large boat that sailed them along the canals of the old city centre. I realised that there were composers, such as Lully or Corelli, of whom there remained much to say and much to popularise. Today Modo Antiquo is a Baroque orchestra under my direction, and a medieval ensemble under the direction of Bettina Hoffman. To deal with two repertories that are so different in style and distant in period requires very different instruments, musicians, approach and sensibility. It was therefore necessary to form two distinct groups, the shared name simply revealing their common origin, even if today there are some musicians who work as much with the one group as with the other”.
Both ensembles are today much in demand at European festivals. The medieval ensemble of Modo Antiquo tours a repertoire that includes Carmina Burana (recorded for Speciale Amadeus), in addition to the music of the Crusades and French, English and Italian dances. Among their CDs one finds an important first complete recording of the madrigals and ballate of the group’s Florentine compatriot, Ghirardello da Firenze (Nuova Era).
For Sardelli, the Baroque side of Modo Antiquo has today reached a point where he is satisfied he has at his disposal one of the finest Italian ensembles of its kind: “After fifteen years of work I can say that the Baroque Modo Antiquo orchestra draws together the best instrumental players to be found in Italy. The selection process has been a lengthy one and we can now finally rely on a group of instrumentalists, who also collaborate with other noted ensembles, on whom is based the taste, style and distinctive musical language of Modo Antiquo. These virtuosi, whose names you can read on our CD covers, are united in a shared view of playing and understanding Baroque music based on great virtuosity and technique, but devoid of showiness and meretricious novelty”.
A glance at the Baroque orchestra’s discography quickly reveals that although they have recorded works by Italian composers such as Locatelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Gabrielli (a world premier CD of his complete cello works for Tactus), and Johann Schenk, one name totally dominates – that of Vivaldi, to whom Modo Antiquo have to date devoted no fewer than fourteen discs, including the complete chamber cantatas spread across six Tactus discs. Such attention is a reflection of Sardelli’s own deep devotion to the composer, who he has loved “since I was a child. I consider him to be the most eloquent musician of the first half of the eighteenth century. Vivaldi speaks to everybody, he speaks straight away, he touches the heart, he reaches into the brain and the body, which quickly finds itself moving to the captivating rhythm of his basses. Maybe this is the link that Vivaldi’s music has with our time, the use of the bass, closely resembling the use of bass and drums in rock music. However, Vivaldi is also touching, gentle and dramatic, his opera arias capture your heart and make you feel deeply moved. This is why I was drawn to Vivaldi, studying his music with ever deepening understanding each day; I am on the Scientific Committee of the Italian Vivaldi Institute in Venice, for whom I publish essays and critical score editions. At this very moment I am working on other Vivaldi projects. After having recorded world premieres of the operas Arsilda, regina di Ponto, Orlando furioso and Tito Manlio [Sardelli is in fact incorrect in claiming world premiers for the two latter works; both have been recorded, albeit cut and not in ‘historically informed’ performances], I am at present preparing the reconstruction of Tigrane and a CD of unpublished arias drafted from volume Foà 28 from the National Library of Turin that I am to record for Naïve with Paul Agnew and Sandrine Piau”.
The Vivaldi opera series is part of an ongoing project started by Modo Antiquo in 1998 to rediscover systematically the dramatic works of Vivaldi. Since then a new opera has been produced every year in collaboration with the Antonio Vivaldi Italian Institute, Barga Festival Opera, Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR 3) and Amadeus and Marc Aurel. “These revivals” Sardelli elaborates, “are brought about by various means - the musicological research on the critical edition of the works as made available by the Vivaldi Institute, the preparation in the theatre and the radio broadcasting and recording considerations. Only in this way is it possible to restore to the ‘teatro vivaldiano’ the role it had lost for centuries”.
By the time these words are in print, both Arsilda and Orlando furioso should be available on the Marc Aurel label, with Tito Manlio to follow during 2004. This is mouth-watering news for the ever-increasing numbers who are in the process of exploring the hitherto little-known riches to be found in historically informed performances of Vivaldi’s dramatic works. There seems little doubt that after twenty years, Modo Antiquo have arrived on the scene in a big way. Sardelli’s confidence in the future is reflected by his answer when asked about his ambition for Modo Antiquo: “Many more good concerts and recordings! The two Grammy nominations were for recordings that were characterized by a strong communicative drive allied to serious historical research. Recording and concert activities are meaningless without musicological research. After the Corelli Concertos [the first recording to employ wind instruments in addition to strings], I was even more convinced that good recordings are born from good research. As one studies the actual relationship between the composition, the customary usage, the execution, and the market forces of eighteenth century music, one finds the best ideas for new recordings that will enrich the awareness of today’s listeners”. BRIAN ROBINS
|
|
|
|