Antonia Bembo (1643-1720)
Produzioni Armoniche, 1701

Ensemble Armonia delle Sfere

Miho Kamiya, soprano
Gloria Banditelli, alto
Daniele Salvatore, flûte
Marianne Gubri, harpe baroque
Stefano Rocco, théorbe, guitare baroque
Perikli Pite, viole de gambe
Silvia Rambaldi, clavecin
Giuseppe Monari, orgue

Marcella Ventura, contralto
Marcello Vargetto, basse
Alice Boccafogli, flûte à bec
Michele Santi, trombone
Mikari Shibukawa, harpe baroque

Accusant son mari de mauvais traitements et d’infidélité, Antonia Bembo déposa une demande de divorce en 1672. Deux ou trois ans plus tard, elle quitta Venise pour Paris, où ses talents de chanteuse et de compositrice lui permirent de se produire devant Louis XIV. Le recueil des Produzioni armoniche (1701) comporte 35 cantates et airs sur des textes italiens (dont 3 cantates sacrées), 5 courtes pièces en latin et 1 air en français. La quasi-totalité des pièces a été composée pour une voix de soprano, son registre vocal. Il n’y a donc que quelques duos et un seul trio. L’accompagnement instrumental se réduit en général à une ligne de basse continue. Qu’elles célèbrent le Roi Soleil, disent la lamentation de la Vierge ou chantent tel ou tel affect, ces pièces se caractérisent par une grande attention au sens du texte et par un mélange de sobriété dépouillée et de goût pour une certaine sophistication vocale. Miho Kamiya et l’ensemble Armonia delle Sfere, en proposant le premier enregistrement mondial de ce vaste recueil, nous permettent ainsi de découvrir une compositrice méconnue. (Emmanuel Lacoue-Labarthe)

Within this new album the Armonia delle Sfere ensemble is delivering to us the complete Produzioni Armoniche work by Antonia Bembo, a collection of fourty one motets dedicated in 1701 to Louis xiv, the Roi Soleil, to whose court she landed after a series of vicissitudes occurred in Venice, her hometown, including the failure of a marriage and important family disputes, for which she was deprived of his paternal inheritance. After being trained under the musical guidance of Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), organist of the ducal chapel of San Marco, Antonia secretly married Lorenzo Bembo, a Venetian nobleman, from whom she had two children, and from whom in 1672 she herself asked divorce, due to the continuing absence of her husband, whom she also accused of continuing abuse and betrayal. She then moved to Paris, perhaps following the guitarist Francesco Corbetta, where she concentrated on music and composition, and where she had the opportunity to perform in the presence of Louis xiv, at the court of which she would find acceptance and protection until the end of her life. It is the fascinating story of a strong personality that sought and found its way overcoming the difficult condition of a seventeenth century woman artist.