Until the late 16th century, instrumental music was based on vocal patterns. It is no surprise, then, that when instrumental genres finally emancipated themselves as an independent, they were expected to paint poetic images and convey the state of the human spirit, just like vocal music. This is how the Baroque prototype of Mendelssohn’s songs without words was created. At the Forum Musicum, the internationally acclaimed ensemble Concerto Scirocco will present this fascinating repertoire.

The concert will begin with one of Biagio Marini’s canzonas; Marini was a 17th-century artist whose work proved incredibly important for the development of music: his oeuvre reveals the emergence of individual instrumental genres. The origins of the trio sonata can be recognised in the dialogues of the voices of Andrea Falconieri’s Fantasia detta La Portia. Another important figure of the era was Giovanni Antonio Bertoli. His collection of works for bassoon, entitled Compositioni musicali, published in Venice in 1645, is also the first known collection of solo sonatas. Marco Uccellini’s Symphonia No. 34 “A gran Battaglia”, which we will hear next, is an example of Baroque sound painting, in this case depicting a battle. Also referencing a battlefield are the Canzona Est-ce mars and the Galliard battaglia by Samuel Scheidt – one of the most accomplished representatives of German music of the first half of the 17th century. Uccellini’s oeuvre includes an instrumental piece devoted to the theme of love – the Aria decima terza sopra “Questa bella sirena”, which uses an ostinato theme taken most probably from a lost song whose words are unknown.

The development of music at the turn of the 17th century brought with it not only stylistic transformations in composition but also in the instruments themselves. The Bolognese Alessandro Piccinini created both music and instruments – and he excelled in both. As a luthier, he made important modifications to how the chitarrone was made and claimed credit for inventing the archlute. Another representative of this profession was Marco Antonio Ferro, a lutenist associated with the Vienna Hofkapelle. During the Forum Musicum, Concerto Scirocco will also explore English repertoire. William Byrd’s Sermone blando is an arrangement of a chorale melody, composed in his teenage years. William Brade’s Corale is one of the earliest known pieces for solo violin in English music, revealing this Brade’s predilection for true virtuosity, himself a violinist.