LITHUANIA SPLENDOUR

Treasures of Lithuanian Baroque Music

 

Lithuania Splendour presents the best examples of Lithuanian baroque music production and practice. Giovanni Battista Cocciola was an Italian composer, working in Vilnius as a Kapellmeister at Leonas Sapiega’s court in the beginning of the XVII century. Although most of Cocciola’s work is lost, the collection of surviving sacred pieces shows he was an exquisite composer. Works from the Braunsberg Tablature are also present in the programme, since it was an organ book written in the beginning of the XVII century at Braunsberg Jesuit Collegium, which belonged to Lithuanian Jesuit Province and had tight connections with Vilnius University. Pieces by Orlando di Lasso and Giovanni Gabrieli are performed with the original divisions from this organ tablature. Finally, programme presents composers who worked for the king of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth Sigismund III Vasa, such as Tarquinio Merula, Diomedes Cato and Bartlomiej Pekiel. The court used to travel regularly from Warsaw to Vilnius with its musicians, who were a part of the Lithuanian music scene. This program recreates the musical atmosphere of Lithuania in the beginning of the XVII century, performed with its most important surviving historical organ.

 

 

Programme

 

Giovanni Battista Cocciola, Ave Sanctissima Maria

                                 

Andrzej Rohaczewski, Canzon a 4

                                        

Giovanni Battista Cocciola, Deus, Deus Meus     

                         

Tarquinio Merula, Canzona La treccha

                               

Giovanni Battista Cocciola, Ave Verum Corpus               

 

Diomedes Cato, Canzona Diomedis   

                                    

Bartlomiej Pekiel, Dulcis amor Jesu

                               

Braunsburg Tabulatur/ Giovanni Gabrieli, Fuga France                                                                            

 

Tarquinio Merula, Sonata Cromatica per Organo        

 

Giovanni Battista Cocciola, Ave Mundi Spes Maria 

                   

Tarquinio Merula, Chi prend’amor a gioco

           

Tarquinio Merula, Ciaccona        

           

Giovanni Battista Cocciola, Jubilate Deo

                                      

Tarquinio Merula (5 parts version R. Calveyra), Folle e ben che si crede                   

 

 

 

Formation:

5 singers, 2 cornetto/recorder players, 1 organ