The Montreal Baroque Festival, which opened Thursday at the Rialto Theater, will continue until Sunday. As part of a tribute to female composers, the heroine of this grand opening night, conducted by Mathias Maute, was Chiara Margarita Cozzolani.
The 20th edition of the Montreal Baroque Festival will unfold until Sunday on the theme “Feminine Cadence”. Alongside the concerts, Montréal Baroque 2022 will also be, this weekend and for the first time, the meeting point between some forty representatives of the European Early Music Network and Early Music America. Presenters, musicians and researchers in early music will meet at the Rialto Theater to discuss, participate in workshops, attend concerts and fine-tune their cooperation.
The composer nun
Opening concert, therefore, and vocal music for eight voices by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-ca.1676), mixed with works by Andrea Falconieri, Giovanni Palestrina, Claudio Monteverdi.
Daughter of a family of merchants in Milan, Margarita Cozzolani entered a convent at the age of 18 and composed “sacred concerts” or “sacred dialogues”. The convent of Saint Radegonde gained a certain notoriety in the middle of the 17th century for the musical performances of its nuns, who notably sang works by Cozzolani. As often, the brake on the diffusion and the notoriety of Cozzolani was the absence of edition of his works. The publication of the scores of his compositions dates from 1996. They have nevertheless been little recorded since.
The accompaniment (logical, moreover) provided for these sacred works was the organ. In Thursday’s presentation, the involvement of Ensemble Caprice led to the “illumination” of this instrumental support by two violins, a cello, a double bass, a cornet, a recorder and a theorbo. Surprising, to say the least, to imagine 17th century nuns in their convent and hearing Deus in auditorium with theorbo and without organ. But we get used to everything and it’s quite beautiful.
For the author of the concert notice, Cozzolani’s music “reflects the evolution of conceptions of spirituality and musical composition: in addition to the “feminine” themes of ecstasy and bodily suffering which served as points of identification between women and Christ, it used technical innovations such as sophisticated polyphony and a rapid, expressive and declamatory concerto style. Far from the conservative and “cloistered” music that one would expect from someone writing behind the walls of a convent, Cozzolani’s works reflect the same stylistic trends as those heard in the theaters of Venice, a hundred leagues ballast. »
In practice, two things are striking: the number of individual interventions and the incessant rhythmic reversals. The discovery of Cozzolani is “relevant” works in dialogues, like the Beatus Vir, are very original, developed, sometimes bold on the harmonical level (final amen). In fact, the success of the concert rested on the eight voices of the Art-Québec ensemble, which held up well to the shock of a solo exhibition.
The 3rd section of the evening (Palestrina, Monteverdi) mainly served to introduce the Montréal Baroque Festival Choir, an extended group of amateurs involved in the festival. The whole evening was still a little strange. This repertoire called for vaults and their resonance, not a theater, more suited to madrigals. Moreover, the inaugural evening of the 20th anniversary of what was once the most dynamic festival in Montreal had a “survival” side carried by the faith of the coalman”, as if the splendours of yesteryear had remained a trickle.
It is hoped that the great flame and popular support will one day return.
Baroque Montreal
Chiara Margarita. Psalms concertants for eight voices — Motets and dialogues, Venice 1650. Chiara Margarita Cozzolani: Deus in auditorium, Dixit Dominus, Beatus Vir, Magnificat primo. Falconieri: Battaglia de Barabasso yerno de Satanas. Palestrina: Regina Coeli. Anonymous: Passaccalli della vita. Monteverdi: Ave Maris stella, Si dolce è ‘l tormento. Arts-Québec Vocal Ensemble, Montréal Baroque Festival Choir, Ensemble Caprice, Mathias Maute. Rialto Theatre, Thursday, June 23, 2022 — 7 p.m.