Modo facile

​

Early Baroque Songs and Dances from Italy, Featuring the Sistro (Early Xylophone)

 

Sunday, 4 April 2027, 19:00

Zunftsaal zum Schmiedenhof, Rümeliplatz 4, 4001 Basel

 

Programme

• Giovanni Battista Ariosti (1668–?): Selections from Modo facile di suonare il sistro, nomato il timpano (1686)

• Works by Giuseppe Cenci (†1616) from Collezione di Madrigali (1600), Gasparo Zanetti (1600–c. 1660) from Il Scolaro (1645), Giuseppe Giamberti (1600–1662) from Duo tessuti con diversi solfeggiamenti scherzi (1657), Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (1580–1651), and Giovanni Antonio Cangiasi (†1614) from Scherzi Forastieri (1614)

 

Musicians:

Philipp Lamprecht (historical xylophone, percussion, voice and concept) – Anne Simone Aeberhard (recorders) – Mojca Gal (violin) – Giovanna Baviera (viola da gamba and voice) – Charlotte Nachtsheim (harp and voice) – Niels Pfeffer (plucked instruments)

 

At the heart of the programme is the sistro, known in German as the Strohfidel – an early form of the xylophone that is rarely heard today. Songs, dances and instrumental pieces from Giovanni Battista Ariosti's rediscovered collection Modo facile di suonare il sistro (Bologna, 1686) form the basis of the programme. Philipp Lamprecht has deciphered the historical notation and commissioned a Strohfidel specially built according to historical models.

​

Ariosti's collection takes us into the world of 17th-century Italian domestic music-making: music that might have been heard in the aristocratic circles of Bologna or at convivial gatherings. Songs mingle with dances and instrumental pieces, sacred music with secular – and the boundaries between them are not always as clearly defined as we might expect today.

​

Ariosti's collection itself is of particular significance: it is considered the earliest known source of written music for instruments with tuned wooden bars, such as the xylophone. Its unusual tablature reveals not only what was played but also opens a small window onto a musical practice that has almost entirely disappeared.