Federico Bracalente & Daniele di Bonaventura - In Spiritum: Music for Cello and Bandoneon (2021) [Digital Download 24/192]

This recording, from friends and collaborators Federico Bracalente and Daniele di Bonaventura, stems from an idea they had almost 10 years ago: to merge the sounds of their respective instruments, the cello and the bandoneon, into a single sound.

The practice of improvising pieces to alternate with other writings was commonplace during this musical period. Tinctoris in ‘Liber de arte contrapuncti’ describes the custom of Cantare super librum - the ability of the performers to elaborate a counterpoint to the mind. Taking advantage of the vocal characteristics of the two instruments – the extensive range and singing likeness of the cello and the two liturgical registers of the bandoneon (left hand and right hand) – the artists perform this music as if they are three singers, inserting it into a new tonal instrumental framework.

In two pieces, Bracalente and di Bonaventura use an overdubbing technique to enable the cello to simultaneously perform the parts of Superius and Bassus (in Alexander Agricola’s De tous biens plaine II) and create a polyphonically more complex fabric in Jean Mouton's 8-voice motet Nesciens Mater.

In addition to the compositions by Agricola, Du Fay, Palestrina, Mouton and Binchois, they also include an unpublished and never-recorded madrigal, ‘Tu Dormi et Amor veglia per mio danno’, by fellow countryman Eliseo Ghibellini, as well as two other original contemporary compositions written in polyphonic style by di Bonaventura.

The repertoire is chosen from three-voice polyphonic vocal literature, both sacred and profane, with the idea of re-elaborating it through the insertion of free and improvised parts. Already at the time, there was a practice of improvising pieces to alternate with other written pieces. Tinctoris in the 'Liber de arte contrapuncti' describes the custom of Cantare super librum, i.e. the ability of performers to elaborate a counterpoint in their minds.

Taking advantage of the vocal characteristics of the two instruments, the wide range of the cello and the two liturgical registers of the bandoneon (left hand and right hand), the music sounds as if there were three singers, placing it in a new instrumental timbral context.

Presented are works by Mouton, Dufay, Agricola, Binchois, Palestrina and works by bandoneonist Daniele di Bonaventura.

Tracklist:
01. Dufay: Ave maris stella
02. Ghibellini: Tu dormi et amor veglia per mio danno
03. Bonaventura: Sequentia I
04. Dufay: Je languis en piteux martire
05. Bonaventura: Tema del desiderio
06. Agricola: Adieu m'amour II
07. Bonaventura: Sequentia II
08. Agricola: De tous biens plaine II
09. Binchois: Adieu, adieu mon joyeulx souvenir
10. Palestrina: Jesu, rex admirabilis
11. Bonaventura: Corale
12. Bonaventura: Sequentia III
13. Mouton: Nesciens mater virgo virum


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