Schutz - Venice 1629

1629 was a remarkable year for new music in Venice. Heinrich Schutz, came to the city to learn of the latest music from Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, publishing the seminal first volume of his 'Symphoniae Sacrae' during his visit. With the publication of further landmark collections from Dario Castello, Alessandro Grandi and Biagio Marini, this particular year provided a key moment in the development of the Italian Baroque style. Acclaimed period ensemble The Gonzaga Band makes it's Resonus debut with a fascinating programme of works from this period that chart the journey through this incredible year for music. The Gonzaga Band was formed by cornettist Jamie Savan in 1997, with a mission to explore the intimate relationship between vocal and instrumental performance practice in the early Modern period. The ensemble takes it's name from the ducal family of Mantua: the Gonzagas were powerful and influential patrons of the arts in the late Renaissance, who employed Claudio Monteverdi as their maestro della musica at the turn of the seventeenth century. Monteverdi wrote some of his most innovative music for the Gonzagas: his third, fouth and fifth books of madrigals, the operas Orfeo and Arianna, and the Vespers of 1610.