Latin Motets from Bamberg Codex, Summer Stage 2008

ALIA MUSICA

Early Musica Workshop – Sacred vocal music in Medieval Age

musical direction: Claudia Caffagni

with the support of Comune di Fontevivo


Summer Stage 2008 – from 24 to 30 August

Latin Motets from Bamberg Codex

Location: Fontevivo (Parma - Italy), Ex Collegio Maria Luigia

Registration Fee: € 250,00

Info: tel. +39 521 255826

infocorsi@aliamusica.net



Seminary Introduction

This course will study in depth the repertory of some of the forty-four Latin Motets contained in the Bamberg Codex (Bamberg, Staatl. Libr Ed. IV. 6), a parchment paper manuscript of probable Parisian compilation, which goes back to the last quarter of the 13th Century. Beyond the richness of its musical material, the Codex is particularly interesting from the point of view of its notation. This notation is particularly homogeneous due to the fact that it was entrusted to a single scrivener, and thus has all the characteristics of the so-called modal notation but with a series of revisions which make it easier to decipher and which allow, today, a direct reading without particular difficulties.

The work to be carried out will be to arrive at the performance of the repertory through the direct reading of the original source material. This activity will prove particularly stimulating as well as essential, with the ultimate objective of a more fully aware performance.

The course is open to singers and instrument musicians for whom it will also be possible to undertake the performance of the seven instrumental pieces which are found at the end of the musical section of the Codex (ff. 62v-64v).




Claudia Caffagni

Born and raised in a fertile musical environment, Claudia Caffagni began her study of the lute under the guide of her father Mirco at the age of thirteen. She continued her studies with Federico Marincola and Jacob Lindberg, from whom she received a diploma in Lute Performance at the Royal College of Music in London in 1989 and subsequently with Hopkinson Smith an the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with particular emphasis on Spanish Renaissance and German Baroque repertoire. In 1982 she began her professional activity both as a soloist and in various ensembles, specializing in Renaissance and pre-Baroque music. Together with the study of her instrument she also privileged the necessary study of musical source materials, notation and musical treatises, later concentrating her energies on the Medieval repertoire, already from the inception of the Ensemble La Reverdie --one of the pre-eminent ensembles specializing in the study and performance Medieval music-- of which she is a founding member (1984).

With the Ensemble La Reverdie she has performed at the most prestigious festivals of all Europe. She has recorded for the Italian state radio, RAI, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Süddeutsche Rundfunk, Südwestfunk, WDR (Germany), BRT3, Klara (Belgium), France Musique (France), ORF1 (Austria), Antenna 2 (Portugal), RTE (Spain), Radio Televizija Slovenje (Slovenia), Polskie Radio 2 (Poland), RSR , Espace 2 (Switzerland), CRO Radio 4 (the Netherlands). She has recorded sixteen CDs for ARCANA, in coo-production with WDR. All CDs has obtained a lot of prizes, first among all the Diapason d’Or de l’année 1993.

In 1994 she awarded (with honours) in Architecture at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, with a dissertation entitled: "Il temperamento in musica e in architettura: La Schola Riccatiana", which has been published in the book “Le architetture di Orfeo” (Casagrande-Fidia-Sapiens, Milano-Lugano, 2008).

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Ensemble La Reverdie (1986-2006) she prepared a new critical performing edition of Guillaume Dufay's Missa Sancti Jacobi, directly transcribing the Mass from one of two of its manuscript sources, the Codex Q15 from the Bologna Civico Museo Bibliografico Library.

She has held seminars and courses in lute and medieval music at "Alia Musica" in Parma, at the l’Accademia Internazionale della Musica Antica di Milano (Scuola Civica), and she is teaching Early Music performance practice at the Conservatory "G. Tartini" in Trieste.

She teaches medieval lute and medieval notation at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen (University of Music Trossingen/Early Music Institute). Since 2003 she has taught both Medieval music and Medieval musical notation at the International Summer Courses of Early Music in Urbino, Italy.