Sunday 26 September, 6pm
MÚSICA Trobada
La dolça melodia
Concert commemorating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Pasqual Fuentes Alcàsser (Aldaia, 1721-Valencia, 1768)
Francesc Valldecabres, organ and direction
Pilar Moral i Carmina Sánchez, sopranos
Enric Llorens i Víctor Yusà, baroque violins
Regina Fuentes, baroque cello
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PROGRAMme
Pasqual Fuentes Alcàsser (Aldaia, 1721 – València, 1768)
· Oh, admirable sacramento, villancet al Corpus Christi.*
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· Aleph. Ego vir videns, lamentació a duo pel Dijous Sant.
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· El dragón que hoy envidioso, recitat i ària del villancet a la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats.*
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· Si de un ave, la dulce melodía, duo de sopranos amb violins de l'Arxiu de la catedral de Girona.
Totes les obres han estat recuperades per Música Trobada.
*Primera interpretació en temps moderns
About the group
música trobada
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Since its foundation in 2009, Música Trobada has sought to position itself as a platform for research, recovery and dissemination of ancient and Baroque music, mainly of Spanish and Valencian musical heritage, with key figures such as Joan Cabanilles and Pasqual Fuentes Alcàsser. Formed by Francesc Valldecabres (continuo and conductor), Pilar Morano (soprano) and Regina Fuentes (cello), it regularly has the collaboration of renowned professionals in the artistic sector, within both musical and other disciplines. Música Trobada has performed in different spaces such as the Palau de la Música in Valencia, the Alfons el Magnanim Room, the Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia. They have performed in Cycles and Festivals such as, the Valencia Philharmonic society, FeMap, Desert de las Palmas, Muses de Sagunt, Peniscola, Vélez Blanco and the Requena Sacred Music Week, among others.
In recent years there has been significant collaboration with the museum of Fine Arts of Valencia where they performed a series of concerts of new productions mainly recovering Valencian musical heritage as well as the organisation of the course of Renaissance and Baroque Singing of Requena.
Música Trobada has published three recordings : “Joan Cabanilles . The music of a time “(Assisi 2011) with works by Cabanilles, Pradas and traditional music with the collaboration of the singer, Pep Gimena Botifarra: “With or Without a license” ( La Má de Guido 2017) with the carols in Valencian by Pascual Fuentes ( 1721-1768) with which they began the project to recover the music of the Aldaian composer and were nominated for the Carles Santos Valencian Music prize in 2018: and “Lamentation” (DCB Produccions, Crissanjor S.L. 2020)dedicated to the Lamentations of Fuentes and presented in the Zarzuela Theatre, with which they opened the 2021 celebration of the 300th anniversary of his birth.
PROGRAMme notes
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Pasqual Fuentes Alcàsser was born in Aldaia on May 15th 1721, into a family dedicated to the flax business who had been settled in the town since the middle of the 17th century. Bit by bit we have learnt more about his childhood growing up in a town with a population of about 1500 inhabitants still linked to the monastery of Poblet and surrounded by orchards and fields. Pasqual Fuentes was the son of Victoriano Fuentes and Maria Alcàsser, he was the third of six brothers. His god father was Miguel Marco, a village teacher, who we might imagine to have taken an active part in Pascual's education, even music.
At the age of nine he began his training as an infant in one of the main Hispanic centres, the Cathedral of Valencia under the tutelage of the well-known Josep Pradas, where later on he would occupy the roles of Choirboy and acolyte, From that moment on thanks to different studies, we can, little by little, follow the trajectory of this famous musician, possibly one of the least known of eighteenth century Valencia. Fuentes worked as a tenor in the Cathedral of Albarrasí and was chapel master of the church of Sant Andreu until he became chapel master of the Cathedral of Valencia succeeding his master, Josep Pradas.
The productivity of this man from Aldaia is surprising for several reasons: the huge number of works, the quality and use of a new musical language with a galant Italian influence the use of Valencian in some works, the emergence of highly elborate vocals and the use of both popular and traditional music.
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In addition among the compositions, we find true historical gems such as the Mass for Our Lady of the Forsaken of 1767 and others relating to prominent events such as the celebration of the third centenary of the canonization of Saint Vicent Ferrer in 1755; or the proclamation, in Valencia, of Carles lll, in 1759, or the “oppositions” for organist at the cathedral etc.
Sunday October 3, 8pm
Alenar
Sento d’amor la flama
World, Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean and Hindu music
Sara Parés, renaissance and barroque flutes
Perepau Ximenis, diatonic accordions and ektara (Indian guitar)
Àlex Guitart, lavta, tombak, bendir, tambourine, gong feng wind
About the group
alenar
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ALENAR was born in 2018, as a result of the joint work of Perepau Ximenis on the accordions and Sara Parés on the flute. With their instruments which breathe through them and give sound to the music, they cover a repertoire that goes from Medieval music to the newly created Folk, fusing styles and techniques and complementing the qualities of the instruments' origins and those of early music.
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Overcoming the bias of cataloguing this time they enter the world of World Music, thanks to the collaboration of the multi-instrumentalist Àlex Guitart, a performer with great experience in this field.
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In their respective careers they can count many concerts at national and international level as well as numerous recordings with prestigious record labels
PROGRAMme
sento d'amor la flama
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· Sento d’amor la fiamma, by Lorenzo da Firenze (m. 1372)
· Stella Splendens, Mariam Matrem, anonymous from the Llibre vermell of Montserrat (14th Cent.)
· Istampitta “Tre Fontane”, anonymous of the Manuscript of London BL 29987 (14th Cent.)
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· Lord Aboyne’s welcome, Scottish suite by Francesco Barsanti (1690-1772)
· Logan water
· Birks of Envermay
· Irish suite:
· Down by the Salley Garden, by Herbert Hugues (1889)
· Jiggs., traditional Irish song
· Geordie, traditional English song
· Tempus fugit / Bretanya, by Erwan Menguy (s. XXI)
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· Chatok Bache Kemone, Moner Manush, traditional bengali songs by Lalon Shah (1774-1890)
· Masar / Palestina, of the Trio Joubran (2004)
· A la núvia, anonymous Catalan Jewish wedding songs of the Renaissance
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· Mediterranean Dames, four Balearic traditional songs:
· La dama d’Aragó, La dama de París”, La dama de Mallorca, La dama de Beirut
· Three Balearic fandangos: tradicional songs from Mallorca and Menorca
Programme notes
Francesco Barsanti, Italian flautist, oboist and Baroque composer settled in Scotland in his youth where he came into contact with popular music which inspired him to write a series of pieces as startling as they are everyday, since they are nothing more than harmonisations of Scottish folksongs. This repertoire allows us to take a true journey into 18th century Celtic music and at the same time demonstrates an early experience of fusion between traditional music and so-called “ cultured “ music. But where is the boundary between these two musical universes? It would certainly be very difficult to define where tradition ends and where scholarship begins.... both in terms of the repertoire and the design of the instruments themselves.
It is in this spirit that we venture, with “I feel the flame of love” ,to break down barriers and to confront songs taken from their respective contexts, handed down and presented to us as blood brothers. And all this we do deliberately, incorporating instruments from these diverse worlds, ranging from those commonly used in what is called World Music, to those most typical of classical music, passing through what we can only call “ indigenous”. Scottish and English ballads and Irish jigs are mixed with music from the Mediterranean, and also from India and Palestine. Compositions from the Middle ages and the Baroque emerge as a branch of newly created Folk music.
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The nexus which serves to blend all these ingredients and make the recipe so aromatic is none other that the universal theme of Love, which has been, and will continue to be, the reason for so much music since time imemorial.
Saturday, October 9, 7pm
Lucentum XVI
Francesc de Borja
Music for the 450th anniversary of his death
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Pere Saragossa, shawms and direction
Quiteria Muñoz, soprano; Carla Sanmartín, alto
Jesus Navarro, tenor; Giorgio Celenza, bass
Carlos García-Bernalt, organ
Xavier Boïls, cornetto; Vicent Osca, sackbut; Antoni Lloret, shawms;
Antoni Llofriw, dulzians; Fernando Fernández, lute; Facundo San Blas, percussion
PROGRAMme
francesc de borja
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· La Bataille, by Clément Janequin (c.1485-1558), of the Dixiéme livre (Amberes, 1545) of Tielman Susato
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· Rondeau «Ce jour», by Guillaume Dufay (c.1397-1474)
· Ave Maris Stella, by G. Dufay / Booksongs of Montecassino (c.1480)
· Miserere Nostri – Vexilla Regis, C. Montecassino
· El cervel mi fa, anonymous of the Booksong of Palacio (c. 1500)
· Susanne un jour, d’Orlando de Lassus (1532-1594)
· Credo in unum Deum of the Mass about Susanne un jour, by Orlando de Lassus.
· Makam Muhayyer «Kúme» usules Düyek Acemler, Turkish war march.
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· Passio Domini nostri Iesu Christi secundum Mattheum*, by Jan Nasco (c.1510–1561) and Joan Baptista Comes (c.1582-1643)
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*Named as «Passion de Valencia» by Joan Baptista Comes (Escorial Monastery Archive, c.1607)
ABOUT THE GROUP
lucentum xvi
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Group of ministers (instrument players) directed by Pere Saragossa , created to interpret and spread the rich and varied musical repertoire of the Renaissance. Bands of wind instruments, with the name alta capella , spread throughout cities and towns in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. The main function of the ministers within the liturgy was to accompany the vocal music, dubbing the voices. In the civil sphere, the high chapel was in charge of performing dances, popular songs, and love pieces and epics of courtly and popular origin.
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Lucentum XVI's performances include those performed in Bari and Molfetta as part of the Anima mea de la Puglia Festival (Italy), Musical Vespers of the Monastery of Pedralbes, Festival of Ancient Music of the Pyrenees, Serenades Festival of the University of Valencia, Music Festival Antiga de Morella, Clásicos en la Frontera a la Ribagorça, Festival of Contemplative Music of Santiago de Compostela, Festival of Sacred Music of Benicà ssim, Festival of Ancient and Baroque Music of PeñÃscola.
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In 2021 they published their first record work with the title " El Cantoral del Monestir de Santa Maria de la Murta d'Alzira ", a disc of which the specialized critic has said "The execution is absolutely exquisite, full of balance in the excellent voices and the instruments (...). The album is a gem, both for the interpretation and for the unprecedented and beautiful polyphony and for the documentation.» (Manuel de Lara Ruiz, Scherzo Magazine, June 2021).
Programme notes
francesc de borja
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This programme comemorates the 450th anniversary of the death of Francesc de Borja i Aragó ( Gandia 1510- Roma 1572) who was Duke of Gandia, Lieutenant of Catalunya, later joining the Jesuit order being proclaimed a Saint in 1671, for which reason the Catholic church is now celebrating the 350th anniversary of this fact.
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In this concert we present the premiere in modern times , of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew, a work which Ferran d'Aragó, viceroy of Valencia and Duke of Calabria commisioned from the Flemish composer, Jan Nasco ( 1510-1561) to give as a gift to the Cathedral of Valencia , being known at the time as the Passion of Valencia.
This work is part of the repertoire of the choir of the monastery of Murta d'Alzira, a musical body to which our group has dedicated the first of their albums released earlier this year.
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The representation or interpretation of the Passion according to Matthew , where the gospel of this prophet is narrated, took place in the Roman Catholic liturgy during the Mass of Palm Sunday (the following Tuesday was the gospel of Saint Mark, on Wednesday, the gospel of Saint Luke and on Good Friday the gospel of Saint John.).
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The main characters of the Passion are Christ, the Evangelist narrator and the crowd, the so-called “mob” played by the whole congregation.
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The score for the crowd has not been found in the Monastery of Alzira , so it could have been performed in plain singing or in a now lost poliphony.
But some parts sung by the crowd appear in poliphony for 6 voices originally written by the Valencian Joan Baptista Comes ( chapel master in the Cathedral of Valencia, successor to Josep Prades) which is in the monastery of San Lorenzo d'El Escorial, a Jerónimo monastery, like that of Alzira. And the interventions of the mob, but for 4 voices, appear in a document of 1561 signed by Jan Nasco himself.
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Since the Second Vatican Council, held between 1959 and 1962 the singing of the Latin Passion has been replaced in almost all diocese by the reading of the Passion in the vernacular language ( except in our territory where our own language is not used.).
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Together with this great work we present among others pieces from the Cancionero de Palacio , the palace of Queen Isabel of Castilla ( the Catholic) and king Ferdinand of Aragón, and the Songbook of Montecasino ( Naples) a collection written in the 1480s which accompanied Alfons and Roderic de Borja to Rome where they became Popes with the names Calixtus lll and Alexander Vl.
