fiori musicali
In 1635 the fiori musicali (musical flowers) were published by the highly esteemed Roman composer and organ virtuoso Girolamo Frescobaldi. That there was a lively exchange of ideas and culture between the various cultural centres and composers respectively is verified by the fact that for example, Frescobaldi, on his travels to Brussels, became acquainted with the British composer Philips. It is also known that the south German Johann Jakob Frohberger travelled to Frescobaldi in Rome for the benefit of his studies. And last, but not least, we know that Johann Sebastian Bach copied Frescobaldi’s fiori musicali in his own hand.
In the musical flowers Fescobaldi combines, in the process of three masses, movements based on a cantus-firmus, free toccatas, strictly contrapunctual ricescare and capricci, as well as dance movements.
As Frescobaldi did at the beginning of 17th century, the ensemble il desiderio allows itself to put together instrumental compositions from early baroque of German, Italian and British composers, like a bunch of flowers.
So in the programme of fiori musicali, apart from the Bergamasca for organ (from fiori musicali) and an instrumental canzona by G. Frescobaldi, you will find canzonas and sonatas by Italians such as G. B. Fontana, T. Merula, Germans like J. H. Schein, J Rosenmüller and dance movements by British musicians such as A. Holborne and C. Coleman.
This programme is designed for 2 cornetti, 2 trombones, dulcian, lute and organ.