Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
Canzon post Il Comune
Capriccio sopra la bassa fiamenga
Ricercar
Toccata cromatica per l'elevazione
Toccata IX

Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667)
Toccata I
Toccata IX

Tarquino Merula (1595-1665)
Canzone
Capriccio

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Extraits de "Selva morale e spirituale"

Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche

Jennifer van der Hart, soprano
Wendy Roobol, soprano
Tobias Segura Peralta, alto
Kaspar Kröner, alto
Falco van Loon, ténor
Stefan Berghammer, ténor
Bas Ramselaar, basse
Sara de Vries, violon
Giorgios Samoilis, violon
Cassandra Luckhardt, viole de gambe
Robin de Zeeuw, contrebasse
Arjen Verhage, théorbe
Krijn Koetsveld, orgue, direction

Connaissez-vous le son suave, chantant, intimiste de l’organo di legno, petit orgue en bois de cyprès tant affectionné par Monteverdi et pièce maîtresse de cet enregistrement ? Rien d’étonnant si ce n’est pas le cas : jusqu’à une date récente, il n’en restait aucun exemplaire, pas même au pays des orgues que sont les Pays-Bas. Ainsi, lorsque Krijn Koetsveld monta son projet d’enregistrer l’intégrale des madrigaux de Monteverdi avec l’ensemble hollandais Le Nuove Musiche, il en a fait construire un, suivant les descriptions du compositeur annotées dans ses pièces. Quel bonheur alors de découvrir par ce disque la délicate intonation de l’orgue de Monteverdi se mariant si bien aux voix et instruments de la musique italienne de la fin de la Renaissance ! Vous pourrez l’entendre soutenant l’harmonie et le texte de quelques pièces vocales de Monteverdi et apprécier ses variétés de timbre dans des pièces d’orgue solo de trois autres compositeurs qui lui étaient contemporains. L’alternance orgue et clavecin dans certaines pièces vocales sont une des autres richesses de ce programme qui nous ravit toujours même après plusieurs écoutes. (Mathieu Niezgoda)

This recording features a very special newly built organ, showcasing it in the roles in which its predecessors were used in their heyday at the turn of the 16th century. This particular type of organ, small in scale and with open pipes all made of Italian cypress wood, was one of which perhaps the most important composer of his time, Claudio Monteverdi, was particularly fond, and yet it’s practically nonexistent today. It was during Le Nuove Musiche’s great undertaking to record the complete cycle of Monteverdi’s Books of Madrigals that director Krijn Koetsveld began to feel the need for an organ capable of recreating the sound typical of that era. He explored possibilities for realising such a project, and gradually the idea to reconstruct an organ befitting the Italian musical practice from around 1600 took shape. He approached the Muziekinstrumenten Fonds, and they embraced the idea, consulted organist Netherlands’ Nationaal Pieter van Dijk and awarded the organ building contract to Klop Orgelbouwers. No original organs from Monteverdi’s time have survived, and very few illustrations exist. But it was possible to reconstruct his beloved organo di legno (wood organ) on the basis of contemporary accounts, which describe, in addition to the open, than that of modern organs. From wooden pipes, hand-operated bellows, creating a much lower wind pressure Monteverdi’s instructions in the organo di legno part of his Vespers, such instruments are also known to have had several stops. This recording places this wonderful, new organ centre-stage, as a solo instrument in works by Frescobaldi, Froberger and Merula, but also as a continuo instrument in both sacred and secular vocal works selected from Monteverdi’s collection Selva morale e spirituale of 1641. In the latter, accompanimental role, one can hear firsthand why the soave sound of its wooden pipes was so prized for its ability to blend with the human voice, as was the nuanced wind supply hand-pumped by organ blowers on this recording, as it would have been in Monteverdi’s day.