Loud playing returns to the streets of Wrocław. The ingenious medieval invention for making noise – the alta cappella (“loud band”) will blare with sound again during free city mini-concerts. The programme of Alti Soni performances in the city spaces will include fifteenth-century music – works by Piotr of Grudziądz, Antonio Zacara da Teramo, Domenica da Piacenza – and Renaissance music recorded in the Cancionero de Palacio, the famous manuscript containing musical pieces from Spain.

But what exactly is alta cappella? Simply put, it is three or four trumpets and sometimes, not always, a drum. If we want to delve into the intricacies of musicology, we can, of course, distinguish between the various wind instruments that make up such a noisy bunch: simple buisine (or natural trumpets), slide trumpets, trombones, sometimes also bagpipes, pipes, and of course shawms, including their larger varieties, i.e. pommers... “Trombones, pommers, shawms and all kinds of loud-voice pipes,” wrote the Polish Renaissance scholar Sebastian Petrycy.

During the concerts, there will be a line-up of musicians that we remember from last year's “Loud Playing”: Tomasz Dobrzański – Artistic Director of Forum Musicum, Fryderyk Mizierski and Jacek Muzioł, Agnieszka Szwajgier – musicologist and journalist, graduate of the oboe class of Prof Rafał Przybyła at the Academy of Music in Łódź. She specialises in playing old instruments and is Artistic Director of the early music ensemble “Alta”, which will be heard this year at the Forum Musicum during the Renaissance dance party. Join us!