Luogo e data di registrazione		Kleiner Redoutensaal der Hofburg, Vienna (Austria) - 17-24 febbraio 1970
	Original Editions		Archiv Produktion | 2708 016 | 2 LPs | (p) 1970 | ANA
	Edizione "Codex"		Archiv Produktion "Codex" | 453 165-2 | durata 79' 47" | LC 0113 | 1 CD | (p) 1996 | ADD | stereo
	Produced by		Dr. Gerd Ploebsch
	Tonmeister (Balance Engineer)		Günter Hermanns
	Cover		Botticelli, "The Birth of Venus" (detail), 1485; Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
	Art Direction		Fred Münzmaier
	Note		Original-Image-Bit-Processing - Added presence and brilliance, greater spatial definition

ORIGINAL EDITIONS 2 LPs - 2708 016 - (p) 1970

Treasures from Archiv Produktion’s Catalogue A rare and valuable collection of documents is the pride of any library or archive. CODEX, Archiv Produktion’s new series, presents rare documents in sound from 50 years of pioneering recording. These recordings have been digitally remastered using original-image bit-processing technology and can now be appreciated in all the richness of their original sound-image. They range from the serene counterpoint of a Machaut, the intensely spiritual polyphony of a Victoria, to the imposing state-music of a Handel. For the artists on Archiv Produktion recordings, a constant aim has been to rediscover the musical pulse of past times and to recreate the spirit of past ages. In this sense each performance here - whether by Pro Musica Antiqua of Brussels in the 1950s, the Regensburg Domchor in the 1960s, or Kenneth Gilbert and Trevor Pinnock in the 1970s - made a vital contribution to the revival of Early Music in our time. CODEX highlights recordings that were unique in their day, many of them first recordings ever of this rare and remarkable repertoire, now appearing for the first time on CD. A special aspect of the history of performance in our century can now be revisited, as great moments from Archiv Produktion’s recording history are restored and experienced afresh. Dr. Peter Czornyi Director, Archiv Produktion CAVALIERI: RAPPRESENTATIONE DI ANIMA, ET DI CORPO The Play of Soul and Body is not an oratorio in any modern sense of the word, but it is among the earliest plays with music composed for an oratorio. The Oratorio or meeting hall of the society of devout laity and clergy for which it was written and produced was that founded by Saint Filippo Neri at the Chiesa Nuova (Santa Maria in Vallicella) in Rome. The composer, Emilio de’ Cavalieri, a friend of San Filippo, frequented this circle, although he was mostly absent in Florence between 1587 and 1600. Before becoming Superintendent of the Arts for Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany in 1588, Cavalieri had been active in another similar Roman congregation, the Oratorio del Crocifisso at the Church of San Marcello, where his brother, Mario, had been in charge of Lenten music between 1568 and 1578 and Emilio himself between 1578 and 1584. During Lent, when the devout were expected to refrain from secular entertainments, they were drawn to the oratorios with concerts of spiritual music, often made up of madrigals and secular songs “counterfeited” with sacred words. At other times the music consisted of laudi, simple devotional songs in a popular style. The Rappresmtatione was produced not during Lent but at Carnival time, in February of the Jubilee Year 1600, and this may explain the much more secular character of the play. It was done twice, and the entire Sacred College of Cardinals is said to have attended one or the other performance. In Florence Cavalieri, along with a fellow-Roman Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri, had developed a new kind of pastoral play in which all of the dialogue as well as the songs and choruses were sung. As overseer of public and private entertainments for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cavalieri played a key role in introducing this type of musical theater, but it is still not clear how much credit he deserves for the new style of song, the stile rappresentativo, practiced by all three composers. Peri credited Cavalieri in the preface to his Euridice for having “before any other of whom I know enabled us with marvelous invention to hear our kind of music upon the stage”. Indeed Cavalieri’s musical pastorals, Satiro and La disperazione di Fileno, were sung already in 1591, and his Giuoco della Cieca in 1595, several years before Peri’s Dafne. The Rappresentatione can also claim several firsts: first music drama in the new style to survive complete, first work in the style to be printed (around October 1600), and first printed score to contain a figured bass. The author of the libretto of the Rappresentatione was probably Agostino Manni, who entered the congregation of San Filippo Neri in 1577. A resident priest of the Vallicella, he was the principal poet of this Oratorio, author of several volumes of laudi, some in dramatic form. One of these, printed in 1577, is a dialogue between the Body and the Soul, and it is preserved intact in Act I, scene 4 (Nos. 4-13) of the Rappresentatione, which is a much expanded treatment of the same subject. As performed in 1600 the Rappresentatione began with a recited prose Prologue between Prudence and Caution. The First Act curtain opened on a doddering toothless old man, Time, reminding the audience that time flies and it had better make every moment count, for the final trumpet is about to sound. After the Chorus echoes this thought, Intellect reflects that pleasure only brings renewed desire, whereas complete contentment may be won by embracing God in heaven. Now begins the contest of the Body and Soul. The Soul wins the first round, applauded by the Chorus, which, dancing and playing instruments, praises God in psalm-like phrases. Good Counsel, opening the Second Act, denounces life on earth as an unending war. Pleasure enters with two companions and entices Body and Soul to merriment. Once again Soul saves Body, but Body wonders whether it should have abandoned pleasure. Soul puts the question to Heaven, which responds by sending down the Guardian Angel. But World and Earthly Life, offering riches, power, beauty, and happiness, challenge Guardian Angel. The Body wavers for a moment, until Angel tears off World’s rich garments and bares an ugly wretch. The Chorus demands that Earthly Life also be disrobed; she is found to be death in disguise. Heaven opens and the angels join Guardian Angel in a joyful harmony, to the wonderment of the Chorus. The Third Act opens with another contrast, as Intellect counts the blessings of Heaven, and Good Counsel inventories the pains of Hell. The mouth of Hell opens and Damned Souls bear witness to the eternal fire and pain. Now Heaven opens and Blessed Souls sing ecstatically about the eternal reign of goodness. After Hell and Heaven alternately display their features several more times, Soul and Body agree that they should desire only Heaven. All glorify the Lord and the victory of virtue. The play ends with a chorus and dance in which each of the ritornelli is to be danced to a different step, such as gagliard, canary or corrente. The music is not the work of an amateur, as Cavalieri has sometimes been characterized. He was a singing teacher, organist and dancer, and proves himself in this work to be equal to the demands of his text. But the musical resources are simple, and not all of them novel. The choruses are mainly in the note-against-note style of the popular canzonetta, often in triple meter; but some of them, notably No.2, “Questa vita mortale,” are in a four-part choral recitative idiom, moving with massed speech rhythms, as Monteverdi was to use in the chorus of Orfeo, “Ahi, caso acerbo.” The solo music is also of two kinds, dance-like airs on the one hand, and speech-like recitative on the other. The recitative lacks the free dissonance and rhythmic variety of Peri’s, but it is often poignantly expressive, thanks to the judicious use of cross-relations, melodic chromaticism, and striking changes of harmony. The speech of Anima dannata (No. 69), “Il foco, il foco eterno,” moves in a short space of four bars from G minor, through a second-inversion chord on A flat to an A major chord. This passage returns, like a leitmotif, two scenes later (No. 74), with a different ending that underlines the words, “Sepolta nel dolore,/Aspra penosa e forte,” with unprepared sevenths and chains of suspensions. At the other end of the spectrum is an air - perhaps “solo madrigal” would be a more appropiate term, for “air” at this time meant a strophic song - such as the speech of Anima Beata, “Eterno, eterno regno” (No. 71), in the florid style Caccini made famous, decorated with acccnti and groppi. A true strophic composition is the dialogue of Corpo and Anima that constituted Manni’s laude of 1577 “Anima mia che pensi”. Corpo’s tercets are in recitative style, while those of Anima are variations upon two melodic-harmonic schemes. Many of the clichés of Peri, Caccini, and Monteverdi are already found in this score - the drop of a seventh in the voice at the cadence; the juxtaposition of triads with roots a third apart; the frequent changes from duple to triple meter, usually prompted by change of mood or image in the text; echo effects (as in No. 28); and numerous others. Although today we find the style of Anima e Corpo somewhat bland when compared with Peri’s and ungraceful when compared to Caccini’s, Cavalieri was confident he had found the true path to dramatic music. After the wedding of King Henry IV of France and Maria de’ Medici in Florence in October 1600, when Ottavio Rinuccini’s Euridice was staged with music mostly by Peri, some by Caccini, and Gabriello Chiabrera’s Il rapimento di Cefalo, with solo music by Caccini, Cavalieri was pleased to report that some of the wedding guests to whom he talked in Rome found his own rappresentatione superior: “Many prelates among those who came to Florence saw a rappresentatione in musica that I had done this carnival at their Oratorio, for which the expenditure was six scudi at the most [as opposed to the 60,000 spent for Il rapimento di Cefalo]. They say that they found it more to their taste, because the music moved them to tears and laughter and pleased them greatly, unlike this music of Florence, which did not move them at all, unless to boredom and irritation.” Claude V. Palisca (1970)