Antonio Valente (?1520-?1580)
Fantasia del primo tono
Pisne disminuita
Recercata del septimo tono
Tenore de zefiro con dodeci mutanze
Recercata del primo tono a cinque con la quinta parte in
canone al unisono del tenore
Sortemeplus con alcuni fioretti
Sortemeplus disminuita
Chi la dirra, disminuita
Recercata del ottavo tono
Bascia flammignia
Gagliarda napolitana
Recercata del primo tono
Lo ballo dell’intorcia
Gagliarda lombarda
Ballo lombardo
Recercata del sesto tono a quattro voce con lo basso in canone a l’ottava del contralto
Tenore grande alla napolitana
Recercata del terzo tono
Salve Regina
Tenore del passo e mezo
La romanesca

Adrian Willaert (?1490-1562)
"Qui la dira"

Thomas Crecquillon (1490-1557)
"Pis ne me peut venir"

Philippe de Monte (1521-1603)
"Sortez mes pleurs"

Ensemble L'Armorosa Caccia
Fabio Antonio Falcone, clavecin, virginal, direction

L’intavolatura de cimbalo (1576) est l’un des premiers recueils composés spécifiquement pour le clavecin. De son auteur, Antonio Valente, aveugle de naissance et organiste de l’église napolitaine Sant’Angelo a Nilo, on sait peu de choses. Ce qui est certain, en revanche, c’est qu’il nous donne, dans ce recueil, un témoignage de son talent dans des genres variés : fantaisie, ricercare, salve regina, danses et réductions de chansons parmi les plus célèbres de son époque. Fabio Antonio Falcone joue ces pièces sur un clavecin et un virginal très bien enregistrés et sonnant de manière ronde et belle. Mais, en plus d’un jeu plein de finesse et de libre lyrisme, ce qui rend cet enregistrement particulièrement attachant est qu’il nous donne, en complément, les trois chansons très bien chantées et accompagnées, avec flûte et violes de gambe, par l’ensemble L’Amorosa Caccia (cinq autres pièces ayant également droit à un tel accompagnement). On tient donc là une belle fenêtre ouverte non seulement sur l’art séduisant d’un compositeur peu enregistré mais aussi sur la vie musicale de la Naples rayonnante de la fin du XVIe siècle. (Emmanuel Lacoue-Labarthe)

The Naples of Antonio Valente (c1520-1600) was the principal city of the Spanish Empire of the day, second only to Istanbul of Mediterranean cities in population, a cultural and intellectual hub where ideas were traded as readily as goods at the port. This is the context for ready wit and vivid characters dancing before us in the harpsichord manuscript left to us as the principal work of an instrumental virtuoso who was blind from birth. Little else is known of Valente, though he became an organist in one of the city’s private chapel between 1565 and 1580, and we know that this Intavolatura was published in 1576, by which time the composer’s reputation had spread far beyond the kingdom of Naples. It seems certain that the collection was the first of its kind to be written in southern Italy. These are popular dances rather than original melodies, and Valente transcribes and elaborates them in various genres of song and dance: there are hymns (a Salve Regina), galliards, ricercars, ballads, even a flamboyant ‘Bascia Flammignia’, placed in exuberant juxtaposition, hardly designed to be heard in strict order but a collection to delight and entertain. The Intavolatura does so here, thanks to the imaginative re-instrumentation and sparkling performances of an Italian earlymusic ensemble, L’Amorosa Caccia. The songs are reattributed to a pair of singers (Giulia Valentini and Marcos Garcia Gutierrez), accompanied by pairs of recorders and viola da gamba, with the overall artistic direction undertaken from the keyboard by Fabio Antonio Falcone.