Viadana: Sacri concentus The Viadana Collective, Maximilien Brisson & Iason Marmaras

• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (1560 - 1627): Hodie nobis coelorum Rex, a 8 (Promptuarii musici, Pars Prima - Strasbourg, 1611:
• 1 Hodie nobis coelorum Rex, a 8 (Promptuarii musici, Pars Prima - Strasbourg, 1611: No. 18) 03:43
• Iason Marmaras (b. 1985): Toccata del decimo tuono (Improvisation):
• 2 Toccata del decimo tuono (Improvisation) 03:05
• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana: Il sangue a pena havesti, a 5 (Parte delli Pietosi affetti del Padre Angelo Grillo - Venice, 1598: No. 8):
• 3 Il sangue a pena havesti, a 5 (Parte delli Pietosi affetti del Padre Angelo Grillo - Venice, 1598: No. 8) 02:35
• Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 4 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 77, Jubilate Deo 02:53
• Sinfonie musicali:
• 5 Sinfonie musicali: No. 12, Sinfonia "La Bergamasca" 04:20
• Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 6 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 49, O stupor et gaudium 03:51
• 7 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 23, Festina quæsumus (Instrumental Version) 02:50
• 8 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 85, De profundis clamavi 02:31
• Ecce ego mitto vos, a 8 (Promptuarii musici, Pars Tertia - Strasbourg, 1613: No. 56):
• 9 Ecce ego mitto vos, a 8 (Promptuarii musici, Pars Tertia - Strasbourg, 1613: No. 56) 02:45
• Iason Marmaras: Intonazione sopra Susanna (Improvisation):
• 10 Intonazione sopra Susanna (Improvisation) 00:55
• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana: Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 11 Viadana: Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 25, Angustiæ mihi 03:43
• Francesco Rognoni Taeggio (1570 - 1626): Selva de varii passaggi, Book 2:
• 12 Selva de varii passaggi, Book 2: No. 29, Susana d'Orlando passeggiata per violini (After "Susanne ung jour" by Orlando di Lasso) 05:12
• Iason Marmaras: Toccata del terzo tuono (Improvisation):
• 13 Toccata del terzo tuono (Improvisation) 03:09
• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana: Responsoria ad Lamentationes Hieremiæ Prophetæ, Feria 6:
• 14 Responsoria ad Lamentationes Hieremiæ Prophetæ, Feria 6: No. 6, Responsorium III, a 4. Vinea mea electa 02:23
• Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 15 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 44, O Domine Jesu 02:08
• Responsoria ad Lamentationes Hieremiæ Prophetæ, Feria 6:
• 16 Responsoria ad Lamentationes Hieremiæ Prophetæ, Feria 6: No. 8, Responsorium V, a 4. Tenebræ factæ sunt 02:09
• Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 17 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 53, Ardens est cor meum 03:35
• Iason Marmaras: Toccata per l’Elevazione (Improvisation):
• 18 Toccata per l’Elevazione (Improvisation) 02:20
• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana: Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 19 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 51, O præciosum (Instrumental Version) 02:29
• 20 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 18, O dulcissime Jesu 03:07
• Thomas Schattenberg (1580 - 1622): Jubilus S. Bernhardi de nomine Jesu Christi Salvatoris nostri:
• 21 Jubilus S. Bernhardi de nomine Jesu Christi Salvatoris nostri: No. 1, O dulcissime Jesu, a 4 02:11
• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana: Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola:
• 22 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 1, O quam suavis est (Instrumental Version) 03:11
• 23 Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola: No. 62, Ego flos campi 03:30
• Iason Marmaras: Intonazione del quarto tuono (Improvisation):
• 24 Intonazione del quarto tuono (Improvisation) 00:57
• Lodovico Grossi da Viadana: Letanie che si cantano nella Santa Casa di Loreto:
• 25 Letanie che si cantano nella Santa Casa di Loreto: No. 8, Letania del quarto tuono, a 6 06:20
• Si acuero ut fulgur, a 8 (Florilegium Portense II - Leipzig, 1621: No. 57):
• 26 Si acuero ut fulgur, a 8 (Florilegium Portense II - Leipzig, 1621: No. 57) 02:59
• Total Runtime 01:18:51

Info for Viadana: Sacri concentus

In 1614, Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (c.1560–1627) published his most important collection of monodies. A truly monumental contribution to the vocal solo repertoire, it comprises one hundred motets with basso continuo, twenty-five for each of the four main vocal registers. This collection survives today in only two copies of its 1615 German print with the title Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola. Overlooked in modern times, it has so far remained in the shadow of Viadana’s earlier publications. I have been studying this collection and (Viadana's music in general) since 2016, and prepared in 2019 its first modern edition.

With this project, the stellar line-up of soloists of the Viadana Collective explore these forgotten solo motets and present them alongside organ improvisations and works for four, five, six and eight voices and instruments. The beauty of this music is revealed through sonically varied and richly adorned renditions making the most of the magnificent acoustics of the Basilica palatina di Santa Barbara and the glorious radiance of its organ, built in 1565 by Graziadio Antegnati.

Our Swiss-Canadian ensemble blends voices and historical instruments, and brings together major figures and rising stars of the international early music scene in exploring both well-known and forgotten repertoire of the late Renaissance and early baroque. We borrow our name from composer Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (c.1560–1627), whose life perfectly straddles those two eras, his pioneering career spanning a quarter-century on either side of the year 1600. He wrote in almost every genre of the time: four and five-part masses and vespers, falsobordoni, litanies, instrumental canzoni and sinfonie, polychoral motets and psalm settings (from double-choir, 8-part music to his monumental Salmi a quattro chori), sacred monodies and concerti for few voices with continuo (which he pioneered in his famous Cento concerti ecclesiastici), secular canzonette, 5-voice madrigals… As such, his output remarkably encapsulates the music of the era our ensemble grounds itself in.

This album presents the baroque trombone as a virtuosic solo instrument, and focuses on Italian music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the concept of tears as a sort of idée fixe. Tears of sorrow, of joy, of penance, of self-pity; pious tears, passionate tears, tears of longing, of betrayal; tears shed for God; because “faith is dead” or “Love no longer loves”; tears as one's only sustenance, or as a sole refuge of solace. Tears of death, and of life. In their treatment of these themes, the vocal monodies and diminutions of Italian composers Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Sigismondo d’India, Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, Lodovico Viadana, Giovanni Bassano and Bartolomeo Barbarino use highly-colourful word-painting and encourage and require an extreme level of subtlety and variation in sound colours, articulations and shading, and are a perfect conduit for exploring the vocal virtuosity of the baroque trombone.

In addition to these vocal monodies and pieces of diminutions, this album also features three of my own original compositions, including an 8-minute sonata for trombone solo and basso continuo inspired by the sonatas of Biagio Marini and Dario Castello and the harmonies of D’India. It is composed in a style consistent with the language of Italian composers circa 1630, while treating the trombone in a manner consistent with the quasi-vocal idiom found in its existing soloistic repertoire.

The Viadana Collective:
Suzie LeBlanc, soprano
Vicki St. Pierre, mezzo-soprano
Charles Daniels, tenor
Roland Faust, bass
Bruce Dickey, zinc
Anna Noelle Amstutz, violin
Catherine Motuz, trombone
Iason Marmaras, organ
Christophe Gauthier, harpsichord
Maximiilien Brisson, trombone, artistic direction

The Viadana Collective
Our Swiss-Canadian ensemble blends voices and historical instruments, and brings together major figures and rising stars of the international early music scene in exploring both well-known and forgotten repertoire of the late Renaissance and early baroque. We borrow our name from composer Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (c.1560–1627), whose life perfectly straddles those two eras, his pioneering career spanning a quarter-century on either side of the year 1600. He wrote in almost every genre of the time: four and five-part masses and vespers, falsobordoni, litanies, instrumental canzoni and sinfonie, polychoral motets and psalm settings (from double-choir, 8-part music to his monumental Salmi a quattro chori), sacred monodies and concerti for few voices with continuo (which he pioneered in his famous Cento concerti ecclesiastici), secular canzonette, 5-voice madrigals… As such, his output remarkably encapsulates the music of the era our ensemble grounds itself in.

Maximilien Brisson
A leading specialist of historical trombones and critically-acclaimed conductor, Maximilien is a member of I Fedeli, Le Consort laurentien and canticum trombonorum, and has performed with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Akamus, Concerto Palatino, Collegium Vocale Gent, Les Cornets Noirs, I Gemelli, The Toronto Consort and the Zürich Opera, among others. He is lecturer for Baroque Trombone at the University of the Arts Bremen. As a scholar, he has notably presented his research on the monodies of Lodovico Viadana at the MedRen conference in 2019, and his edition of the complete works of Andreas Oswald is pending publication.

An alumnus of the Université de Montréal, McGill University, the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, where he studied early music performance with Catherine Motuz and Charles Toet, Maximilien Brisson has quickly established himself as a leading specialist of historical trombones both in Europe and North America. He has performed with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Akamus, Concerto Palatino, il Gardellino, Collegium Vocale Gent, Les Cornets Noirs, I Gemelli, Les Traversées Baroques, l’Harmonie des Saisons and the Toronto Consort, among others. He is a member of I Fedeli and ¡Sacabuche! and a founding member of canticum trombonorum and Le Consort laurentien, with which he was finalist at the prestigious YorkComp in 2019. He appears on disc with ¡Sacabuche! (Hidden treasures, ATMA), ensemble cantissimo (Choralis Constantinus 1508, Carus), the European Hanseatic Ensemble (Musik aus Alten Hansestädten, Vol. 1, cpo) and Philippe Brach (Le silence des troupeaux, Spectra Musique), and recently recorded his first solo album with Christophe Gauthier and Luc Beauséjour.

Maximilien is lecturer for Baroque Trombone at the University of the Arts Bremen. He also teaches at the MentiParti historical improvisation summer workshop in Basel, and has taught at masterclasses and workshops at the University of Toronto, the San Francisco Early Music Society and the Madison Early Music Festival. Also active as a scholar and editor, his current interests include the works of Lodovico Viadana, Andreas Oswald and František Ignác Tůma as well as organological research on historical trombones.

Booklet for Viadana: Sacri concentus