La nobiltà di Milano. La musique dans la ville des vice-rois espagnols

Description

This recording is dedicated to a often-overlooked center of Italian music: Habsburg Spanish Milan. After the death of Francesco II in 1532, the Sforza had to cede the Duchy of Milan to the French and then ultimately to the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V installed his son Philip II at the head of the Spanish Habsburgs, and the duchy thus came under the rule of a Spanish viceroy. While the city lost the political importance it enjoyed under the Visconti and Sforza families, a relative calm between two terrible epidemics in 1576 and 1630 fostered a thriving cultural life under the patronage of Archbishop Federico Borromeo. We present a varied soundscape of Habsburg Milan, both sacred and secular. We explore the typically Milanese "canzon-motteto," which places a vocal ensemble in dialogue with instruments, double-choir motets, canzonas, and hyper-expressive madrigals little known from Francesco Rognoni Taeggio, better known as a virtuoso violinist and master of the art of improvised diminutions. Music by Giovan Paolo and Andrea Cima, Agostino Soderini, Francesco and Giovanni Domenico Rognoni Taeggio, and Giuseppe Gallo.