One of the traditions of Wratislavia Cantans are concerts by musicians taking part in the Oratorio and Cantata Music Interpretation Course. During this year’s festival, we will be able to listen to the participants of its 47th edition. Accompanied by Marcin Szelest, an expert on early music, they will present music from the early Baroque anthologies Ghirlanda di fioretti musicali and Musica boscareccia by Johann Hermann Schein.

Ghirlanda di fioretti musicali was printed from 1589 in the Roman workshop of Simone Verovia from Brabant. He published his anthologies in the form of part books with vocal parts printed side by side with transcriptions of pieces for keyboard instruments or lute in the form of tablatures (so-called intabulations). Ghirlanda di fioretti musicali contains twenty-five canzonettas of fifteen leading composers active in the Eternal City at the end of the 16th century. These are secular, three-part vocal pieces with a light character. As they are much simpler than madrigals, they could sometimes be sung by skilled amateurs, and the presence of tablatures in Verovia’s publication implies that they were performed with instrumental accompaniment. During the concert we will hear eight such works written by various authors.

The collection Musica boscareccia by Johann Hermann Schein, who a hundred years before Johann Sebastian Bach was the cantor of the church of St Thomas in Leipzig, was published in three similarly styled parts in 1621, 1626 and 1628. During the concert, music from the first and third will be presented. When composing his works, Schein modelled them on the Italian villanells, which were related to canzonettas – popular songs originating from Neapolitan traditions, often with rural themes. The German composer, writing the texts of his works himself, referred to this convention, drawing on plots taken from the pastoral dramas of Torquato Tasso and the tragicomedy Il Pastor fido by Giovanni Battista Guarini. Knowing these works, we can easily recognize such characters as Filli, Mirtillo, Amarilli, Silvio or Coridon in Schein’s villanellas.