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© Priska Ketterer

Marco Beasley & Franco Pavan

Songs of passion and despair
Utrecht Early Music Festival presents
Sat 20 May ’23 20:15 uur


Marco Beasley, tenor
Franco Pavan, lute

Sat 20 May ’23
20:15 uur
  • Sat 20 May ’23
    20:15 uur
    Small Hall
    Past event

When it comes to Italian Renaissance song, one name is on the tip of our tongue: Marco Beasley. This time he is applying his voice and charisma to frottolas and madrigals full of elegantly rendered despair, which grabbed many a courtier by the throat in the sixteenth century. Companion for this passionate tour de force is string wizard Franco Pavan. In 2021, he personally dragged the songs on this programme from beneath the dust on an Italian family archive. From the very first modern performance of music by Bartolomeo Gazza and a certain Ogniben, to works by Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Philippe Verdelot:  passion and despair never lie far from each other in this concert. 

Marco Beasley studied theatre and musicology at the university of Bologna, with special emphasis on ‘recitar cantando’ (sung speech) and sacred and secular polyphony. He received singing lessons from the legendary American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian, after which he proceeded to develop a vocal technique of his own, using his voice in a completely natural way – quite a sensation in the early music world. With his charisma added to the equation, the Italian tenor quickly became one of the most popular and most award-winning performers of classical music.

The Italian lute and theorbo player Franco Pavan graduated cum laude both in lute and in musicology in Milan. He works with leading early music ensembles such as Concerto Italiano, Accordone, La Cappella della Pietà dei Turchini, La Risonanza, La Venexiana and Trinity Baroque. He forms a duo with recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger and is the founder of Ensemble Laboratorio’600. In 2014 he was granted the title Cultore della Materia of music history at the University of Padua. Pavan teaches lute at the conservatory of Verona. 

Part of

Program

Marchetto Cara ca. 1465-1525
Mentr'io vo' per questi boschi 
(from: Albani family archive, Pesaro)

Ogniben Venetiano 16th century
Com'havrò dunque il frutto 
(from: Albani family archive)

Marchetto Cara
Amor da che convien
(from: Albani family archive)

Bartolomeo Gazza 16th century
Lasso ahimè
(from: Albani family archive)

Ogniben Venetiano
E' morta la speranza 
(from: Albani family archive)

Vincenzo Capirola 1474-after 1548
Ricercare primo 
(from: Capirola's Lute Book, ca. 1517)

Marchetto Cara
Caro sepulchro mio 
(from: Andrea Antico (ed.), Canzoni, Book IV, Rome 1517)

Marchetto Cara
Così extrema è la doglia
(from: Albani family archive)

Bartolomeo Tromboncino 1470-after 1534
Zephyro spira
(from: Tenori et contrabassi, Book I, Venice 1509)

Costanzo Festa ca. 1485/90-1545
Tu es Petrus
(from: Albani family archive)

Benedetto Gareth ca. 1450-1514
Amando e desiando
(from: Tenori et contrabassi, Book I, Venice 1511)

Vincenzo Capirola
Ricercare ottavo
(from: Capirola's Lute Book)

Marchetto Cara
Quella fiamma ostinata
(from: Albani family archive)

Bartolomeo Tromboncino
Dolci ire, dolci sdegni
(from: Andrea Antico (ed.), Canzoni nove, Rome 1510)

Michele Pesenti ca. 1470-1528
Che faralla, che diralla
(from: Ottaviano Petrucci (ed.), Frottole, Book XI, Fossombrone 1514)

Don Timoteo 16th century
Uscirallo o resterallo
(from: Frottole, Book XI)

Bartolomeo Tromboncino
Vergene Bella
(from: Canzoni nove)