Classical Music | Ensemble Music

Recorded on 05/05/2004, uploaded on 02/18/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Grouping songs of multiple composers into three sets with additional improvisations, this Italian Baroque Bouquet brings to life the lost art of early 17th Century Italy, transforming the performance into an authentic Baroque music jam session.  From crooning ballads to flashy bebop, the elements of jazz are not truly creations of recent times. We can find "early jazz" in one unlikely place: the first half of Italy's 17th Century, when the strict compositional rules of the Renaissance were giving way to new forms, musical expressions, and soloistic freedoms. With this in mind, this program may be enjoyed either as a simple Baroque music recital, or, more accurately, as a Jazz session featuring sounds from a slightly earlier era than we normally hear in a smoky club.

Zefirno Torna

Zeffiro torna e di soavi odori

L'aer fa grato e'l piè discioglie all'onde;

E mormoradno tra le Verdi fronde

Fa danzar al bel suon sul prato I fiori.

Inghirlandato il crin Fillid'e Clori

Note tempran d'amor car'e gioconde,

E da monti e da vall'im'e profonde

Raddoppian l'armonia gl'antri canori.

Sorge più vaga in Ciel l'Aurora; il Sole

Sparge più lucid'or, più puro argento;

Frediaa di Teti il bel Ceruleo manto.

Lass'io per selve abbandonate e sole

L'ardor di duo begl'occhi e mio tormento,

Come vuol mia ventura, hor piango, hor canto.

Zephyr returns; it makes the air pleasant

With sweet fragrances and races its foot over the waves;

Murmuring through the green bushes,

It makes the flowers dance on the fields to its beautiful sounds.

With their hair wreathed in garlands, Phyllis and Chloris

Blend their dear and joyful notes of love.

While from the mountains and from the deepest and lowest valleys

The songful caverns increase the harmony.

Dawn rises, lovelier still, in the heavens; the sun

Spreads brighter gold, purer silver;

It adorns the beautiful blue cloak of Thetis.

Woe's me! Midst abandoned and lonely woods,

I now complain, now sing, as my fortune decrees,

Of the fires in her two beautiful eyes and of my torments.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.