THE GONZAGA BAND returns to Warwick St Mary’s Church on Tuesday March 22.
It will be the final concert in Leamington Music’s season of Early Music.
The band, directed by Jamie Savan on cornett, includes other leading period instrumentalists – Oliver Webber on violin, Mark Caudle on violone, Guy Morley on bass sackbut and Steven Devine on harpsichord and organ.
Soprano Faye Newton is also back with the band, which scored a big hit with the audience in Warwick at its last concert in January 2020.
The Gonzaga Band, which is now celebrating its 25th year, is named after the ducal family of Mantova, where the composer Monteverdi was significant, and music connected with Venice and the Veneto has been central to the programming that has thrilled audiences throughout Britain.
For this concert, the band will move westward to Milan to perform music written written between 1592 and 1626.
The programme, Alla Milanese, will feature works by composers well known throughout Europe including Palestrina and Lassus, and will also introduce to the Warwick audience others from the Milan area, like the Cima brothers, Giovanni Paolo and Andrea.
By the 1590s, Milan was a very important centre for the development of the violin and Riccardo and Francesco members of the Rognoni family were prominent. The proximity of Cremona and Brescia as centres for violin making was also important. Singers too were challenged by the virtuoso writings of composers like Bovicelli and ornamentation became ever more elaborate.
All across northern Italy, music in convents was remarkably strong. Not only works by male composers were performed, but many nuns contributed superb compositions. These included Caterina Assandra whose works in the decade following 1606 were particularly notable. She among others was published and a prominent music publisher of the time Filippo Lomazzo added much to Milan’s musical ecology.
Visit www.leamingtonmusic.org for tickets and further details.
