O Oriens recalls an ancient music, since it is one of the seven Advent antiphons, which has come to us from the Eastern Mediterranean.
RAVENNA FESTIVAL
at 22:30 (Israel time)
Basilica di San Vitale (Ravenna)
O Oriens
sacred music by Matteo da Perugia
the motets from the Cyprus Code (15th century)
Michele Pasotti, conduction and lute
Francesca Cassinari, soprano
Alena Dantcheva, soprano
Gianluca Ferrarini, tenor
Massimo Altieri, tenor
Efix Puleo, vielle (arm)
Teodoro Baù, vielle (leg)
Nathaniel Wood, trombone
Ermes Giussani, trombone
O Oriens is one of the seven Advent antiphons, also called “O antiphons” because their titles begin with the vocative particle “O”. Many of them, intoned polyphonically as motets, originated in the Eastern Mediterranean and reached us through the 15th-century Cyprus manuscript, now preserved in Turin. The codex includes anonymous music in the tradition of Ars Nova, since, before the Venetian conquest in 1489, Cyprus was ruled by the French Lusignan family. The concert comes in the form of an imaginary dialogue between the anonymous Cypriot composers and Matteo Da Perugia, the first magister cappellae of the Milan Cathedral, whose work is also found in a unique source, the Modena manuscript, probably assembled in the early 15th century, at the same time when oriental scribes were writing down the motets of the French-Cypriot court.
For further information: www.ravennafestival.org.
- The show is available for free for streaming and on-demand for 48 hours, upon registration, on www.italiafestival.tv.
