Enigma fortuna

Description

It is with the title 'Enigma Fortuna' that the ensemble La Fonte Musica, directed by Michele Pasotti, aims to highlight the mysterious and eccentric personality of the Abruzzese composer Antonio Zacara da Teramo (1355-1416). A contemporary of Boccaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi, this composer could almost be likened to a sort of musical Hieronymus Bosch, as the texts he sets to music evoke an "upside-down world" where the obscene, the imaginary, and the grotesque frolic hand in hand. "Let whoever can understand me understand, for I understand myself," he writes in his ballata Amor ne tossa, announcing the pride of Romantic artists 400 years ahead of his time. With this 4-CD recording presenting Zacara's work for the first time, the ensemble Fonte Musica offers a first attempt at understanding. And with it, through the timeless nature of art, comes an understanding of an era called "Renaissance" that seems as "upside-down" as our own.