Revolutionary

There is a popular belief that what makes a great singer is the empty space in the cranium, in most people filled with brain, but here providing extra resonance. This is clearly not true of Nella Anfuso. In the second place, she is a musicologist-an expert in early vocal music who incorporates her research in her art. In the first place, she is, by way of making her living, a professor of literature at the Lucca Conservatory in Tuscany, and has a degree in paleography, which is not the study of companions but that of ancient inscriptions, manuscripts, and the like.

Though I have some question about the size of Signora Anfuso's voice, she is, in my opinion, a great singer, if perhaps a unique one. Others may not agree. If your notion of a great soprano Is Ameling or Leontyne Price or Callas or Melba and you've not heard Anfuso, you are in for a shock, but, I submit, within the chronological limits she has imposed on her repertoire-she does not do, e.g., "Un bel di" or the finale from Salome--her production, her control, her technique are admirable. Her approach to early music will be, to most listeners, an unusual one. And I include myself among that number, for I cannot disabuse myself of the impression, based on several Anfuso records, that her singing sounds like nothing so much as the cooing of a remarkably gifted dove.

As I recall, her last outing with MHS involved the 18th century, through some Vivaldi solo cantatas. Here she goes back a century earlier to what amount to the first great essays In solo song. There is, I think, no question that people have probably always sung or hummed individually to themselves. In the 12th century, when our history of "composed" music really began, the Troubadours, the Trouvhes, and the Minnesanger wrote solo songs to their supposedly unattainable ladies at the same time that- polyphony was being "invented" at Notre-Dame de Paris. But, in effect, polyphony won out, and for centuries (as in most of today's pop) singing became a group effort (thereby saving the individuals from having to expose his vocal shortcomings or prowess).

The revolution-one of the two significant ones In western music, that of the 12th century being the other-came with the Renaissance concern with ancient literature. People were faced with the recently discovered word of Aristotle (whose teachings provided the backbone of the early universities) that Greek drama had been sung. It seemed obvious (especially as such plays always involved a chorus) that Oedipus did not-could not!-deliver his lines en quintette. Soon, musical pioneers, led by Jacopo Peri, went to work and devised plays in which the characters sang individually in a way supposed to emphasize and express the emotional content of the words. Such a formula, which came to be known as monody, took on an independent existence at the hands of Peri's rival Giulio Caccini. Within a couple of decades, Claudio Monteverdi, in Mantua and later in Venice, had honed both the new opera and the new solo song to a fine edge.

Though Monteverdi had dealt admirably with monodic song in his first opera, L'Orfeo, in 1607, his essays in independent monody date mostly from his later Venetian years, beginning with the Seventh Book of Madrigals (significantly titled Concerto) in 1619. The second and third items are a pair of lettere amorose (love letters)-extended songs to texts by unidentified authors that wear the bleeding and trembling heart of the writer on their sleeves. These were republished with some minimal changes in 1623. The last work in the religious collection Selva morale e spirituale (Moral and Spiritual Forest [ - Assemblage)) is a Pianto della Madonna (Our Lady's Lament), really the lament of Ariadne from the lost 1608 opera Arianna set to an emotionally charged Latin text. The record is filled out with two short pieces from the same collection and a movement from the 1610 Vespers.

In his rather dense liner notes, musicologist Annibale Gianuario (Hannibal January to you) indicates that he and Signora Anfuso have been at great pains lo bring you just what Monteverdi wanted. The result, he claims, is giant steps from 1969, when Monteverdi studies were only in their infancy. (Throw out all those old records!) The most obvious result lies in their insistence that everything depends on the words. Hence there is no legato in the presentation: each word Is uttered quite independently according to its own musical and emotional values. It takes some getting used to, but will surely fascinate some old-music buffs-and probably enrage others.

Review of A Faithful Performance: Claudio Monteverdi pg 13

There is a popular belief that what makes a great singer is the empty space in the cranium, in most people filled with brain, but here providing extra resonance. This is clearly not true of Nella Anfuso. In the second place, she is a musicologist-an expert in early vocal music who incorporates her research in her art. In the first place, she is, by way of making her living, a professor of literature at the Lucca Conservatory in Tuscany, and has a degree in paleography, which is not the study of companions but that of ancient inscriptions, manuscripts, and the like.

Though I have some question about the size of Signora Anfuso's voice, she is, in my opinion, a great singer, if perhaps a unique one. Others may not agree. If your notion of a great soprano Is Ameling or Leontyne Price or Callas or Melba and you've not heard Anfuso, you are in for a shock, but, I submit, within the chronological limits she has imposed on her repertoire-she does not do, e.g., "Un bel di" or the finale from Salome--her production, her control, her technique are admirable. Her approach to early music will be, to most listeners, an unusual one. And I include myself among that number, for I cannot disabuse myself of the impression, based on several Anfuso records, that her singing sounds like nothing so much as the cooing of a remarkably gifted dove.

As I recall, her last outing with MHS involved the 18th century, through some Vivaldi solo cantatas. Here she goes back a century earlier to what amount to the first great essays In solo song. There is, I think, no question that people have probably always sung or hummed individually to themselves. In the 12th century, when our history of "composed" music really began, the Troubadours, the Trouvhes, and the Minnesanger wrote solo songs to their supposedly unattainable ladies at the same time that- polyphony was being "invented" at Notre-Dame de Paris. But, in effect, polyphony won out, and for centuries (as in most of today's pop) singing became a group effort (thereby saving the individuals from having to expose his vocal shortcomings or prowess).

The revolution-one of the two significant ones In western music, that of the 12th century being the other-came with the Renaissance concern with ancient literature. People were faced with the recently discovered word of Aristotle (whose teachings provided the backbone of the early universities) that Greek drama had been sung. It seemed obvious (especially as such plays always involved a chorus) that Oedipus did not-could not!-deliver his lines en quintette. Soon, musical pioneers, led by Jacopo Peri, went to work and devised plays in which the characters sang individually in a way supposed to emphasize and express the emotional content of the words. Such a formula, which came to be known as monody, took on an independent existence at the hands of Peri's rival Giulio Caccini. Within a couple of decades, Claudio Monteverdi, in Mantua and later in Venice, had honed both the new opera and the new solo song to a fine edge.

Though Monteverdi had dealt admirably with monodic song in his first opera, L'Orfeo, in 1607, his essays in independent monody date mostly from his later Venetian years, beginning with the Seventh Book of Madrigals (significantly titled Concerto) in 1619. The second and third items are a pair of lettere amorose (love letters)-extended songs to texts by unidentified authors that wear the bleeding and trembling heart of the writer on their sleeves. These were republished with some minimal changes in 1623. The last work in the religious collection Selva morale e spirituale (Moral and Spiritual Forest [ - Assemblage)) is a Pianto della Madonna (Our Lady's Lament), really the lament of Ariadne from the lost 1608 opera Arianna set to an emotionally charged Latin text. The record is filled out with two short pieces from the same collection and a movement from the 1610 Vespers.

In his rather dense liner notes, musicologist Annibale Gianuario (Hannibal January to you) indicates that he and Signora Anfuso have been at great pains lo bring you just what Monteverdi wanted. The result, he claims, is giant steps from 1969, when Monteverdi studies were only in their infancy. (Throw out all those old records!) The most obvious result lies in their insistence that everything depends on the words. Hence there is no legato in the presentation: each word Is uttered quite independently according to its own musical and emotional values. It takes some getting used to, but will surely fascinate some old-music buffs-and probably enrage others.

Review of A Faithful Performance: Claudio Monteverdi pg 13