Our courses, our teachers
2025: Verses, Capricci, Choral Settings
L’Aquila (IT), 25 – 27 July 2025
Smarano (Predaia-IT), 28 July-5 August 2025
The three-year program of the 2025-2027 Academy focuses on the close correlation between the correct interpretation of the ancient repertoire and the knowledge of the sources, the reading and understanding of the original texts (manuscripts or printed) with the information they convey (and which are often lost in modern editions) and the role played by musical instruments, not only in the interpretative moment but also in the compositional/creative moment of the music itself. The executive process draws greater solidity from the analysis of the creative one: understanding how a score was created (and therefore how music was taught/learned) helps to master the “tricks of the trade”, or the ways to deliver a piece of music to the listener in a convincing way.
The program is based on the three cornerstones of Smarano Academy:
1 Partimento / Improvisation: learning the patterns of the Music and the Style of an Epoque. From Partimenti to Scores, from Scores to Partimenti.
2 Music Books as “artefacts”: Reading, Understanding, Performing
3 Embodyment: the relationship among Instruments, Performers, Repertoire, Improvisation
2025 focuses on some musical collections in which counterpoint and “affects” are significantly combined: Frescobaldi’s Capricci, Scheidt’s Tabulatura Nova, and Bach’s Orgelbuchlein. Other contemporary authors are added to them.
A visit to the historic organs of L’Aquila will help place the music, particularly that of Frescobaldi, in a sound context similar to the original.
Partimenti/Improvisation – Edoardo Maria Bellotti:
Banchieri, Organo suonarino 1605; Pachelbel, Tablature of Weimar, 1706.
Clavichord – Ulrika Davidsson and Joel Speerstra:
Scheidt: from Tabulatura Nova, 1624: II Fantasia super Io son ferito lasso SSWV 103; VI Passamezo SSWV 107, X Cantio belgica: Ach du feiner Reuter SSWV 108, 12 canons SSWV 115-126; Bach: BWV 802-805 from Clavier Übung.
German Organ – Hans Davidsson, William Porter
Scheidt: from Tabulatura Nova, 1624, Vol I: Fantasia super Io son ferito lasso, Wir glauben all and Warum betrübst du dich (chorale cycles); Vol II Fuga contraria, Echo, Toccata super in te Domine; Bach: Orgelbuchlein, Passacaglia BWV 582, Alla Breve BWV 589, Pastorella BWV 590.
Italian Organ – Edoardo Bellotti
Frescobaldi, Capricci 1624.
Harpsichord – Enrico Baiano:
Capriccios around Frescobaldi; G. de Macque: Capriccietto – Capriccio sopra re fa
mi sol; G. Frescobaldi, Capricci 1624; J. J. Froberger, Capricci FbWV 501-506; G. Strozzi, Capricci 1°, 2° e 3°; T. Merula, Capriccio Cromatico; G. Salvatore, Canzona Francese Quarta sopra la Bergamasca.
Lectures:
Armando Carideo: The Organ in L’Aquila and South Italy.
Alessandro Albenga: Giovanni Salvatore.