Simone Vallerotonda explores the metaphysical and sensual world of seventeenth-century French lute music. The result is Méditation: Four Suites in Four Different Keys, each associated with a season and with one of the four ‘humours’ (melancholic/autumn, sanguine/spring, phlegmatic/winter, choleric/summer) that were said to characterise human beings in their temperament and physical traits. An anatomy of the human soul, passing from the rarefied and reflective atmosphere of Charles Mouton’s prélude non mesuré through Jacques Gallot’s dizzying rondeaux , Valentin Strobel’s skipping, exotic canaries, the eulogies of Robert de Visée’s tombeaux, where the notes resonate like prayers and tears for the deceased, to the bizarre, asymmetrical courantes of Dubut le Père. A journey at the conclusion of which we find human beings described in their different and contrasting passions by means of music – music whose colours, though centuries old, portray them with extraordinary modernity.
The program contains lute works by Charles Mouton, Robert de Visée, Jacques Gallot, Jean-Philippe Rameau, François Couperin.
SIMONE VALLEROTONDA is professor of Lute at the Italian Conservatory of Music “A. Pedrollo” in Vicenza, Italy. His most recent album is Méditation: Les quatre saisons du luth (Arcana/Outhere Music, January 2022).
Trailer: https://youtu.be/8lRvcxuiBzg
This concert is presented by Southern California Early Music Society in cooperation with the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and CIDIM (Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica).
FREE, no reservations required. Donations to Southern California Early Music Society are welcome.