Date:
Location:
Carnevale veneziano : a night on the piles - I Fagiolini, directed by Robert Hollingworth.
This delightful concert, performed by the English ensemble I Fagiolini in honour of Professor Lino Pertile, presented some of the lighter forms of musical entertainments from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: masquerades, musical games, madrigal comedies and other bizzarrie, which were performed as diversions at banquets, between the acts of plays, at gatherings of academies, and in the streets and piazze during the long Venetian carnival season. Since these forms exploit humour in its various guises, the programme also explored the concept of comedy in the context of Italian music of the late Renaissance. The programme booklet, with notes by Kathryn Bosi, included contemporary images depicting the various public diversions for carnival in Venice (bull hunts, acrobatic feats, masquerades, music on the canals…), and accounts of carnival in Venice left by European visitors.