Barcarolla veneziana

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Programm: 

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741): 

Sonate op. 1 und op. 2 (Auswahl), Sonata RV 86

Venetian Ballads Compos'd by Sig.r Hasse And all the Celebrated Italian Masters (John Walsh, London 1742) und andere Gondolier-Lieder

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Ensemble Ad Fontes:
Anne Simone Aeberhard (recorders) – Mojca Gal (violin) – Bruno Hurtado Gosálvez (cello) – Thomas Leininger (harpsichord) – Niels Pfeffer (baroque guitar, mandolin) – Sebastian Mattmüller (bass)

 

Barcarolla Veneziana brings together music that enjoyed great popularity in the 18th century: chamber works by Antonio Vivaldi and Venetian barcarolles, songs of the gondoliers.

By the mid-18th century, Venice had already become a tourist attraction. Canaletto’s paintings were popular souvenirs, but “Venetian music” was also printed and widely circulated. Charles Burney wrote that the songs of the gondoliers were “so famous that every music collector in Europe must have a supply of them.” In London, John Walsh printed over 500 Venetian ballads or barcarolles (barca rolla – boat waltzes). Interestingly, his editions were distributed throughout Europe—with the exception of Venice.

In J. J. Rousseau’s Dictionnaire de Musique, the following entry appears:

(Barcarolles): f. A type of song in the Venetian language, sung by gondoliers. Although the airs of the barcarolles are composed for the people and often by the gondoliers themselves, they possess such melody and such a pleasant accent that there is no musician in all of Italy who does not make it a point to know them and to sing them. The gondoliers’ free access to all theaters enables them to cultivate their ear and taste without cost, so that they are able to compose and sing their melodies...