A 15th century Italian banker named Cosimo de’ Medici, in addition to creating a financial empire, collected and preserved music from Florentine composers.
The Newberry Consort will share music that might have been part of his collection with “Music Fit for the Medicis” on Feb. 20 at Northwestern University’s Galvin Recital Hall.
There will also be performances of that program Feb. 18 and 19 in Chicago.
David Douglass, co-director of the Newberry Consort with his wife Ellen Hargis, devised the concept of this concert. “I had to think of what I wanted to do for my last program that I put together for the Newberry Consort and that’s what I chose because it’s a period of music that I find so beautiful and intricate,” he explained.
The couple is retiring from the Newberry Consort after this season but will continue with some other musical endeavors. Liza Malamut will take over leadership of the group.
Douglass is pleased with how this concert has come together. “I have such a fantastic crew of performers so it’s going to be a very exciting show,” he said.
There will be three singers — Hargis, Salomé Sandoval, and Matthew Dean — and five musicians. Douglass and Allison Monroe will perform on the vielle, a stringed instrument from that period. Monroe will also play lap harp.
Other performers are plucked string artist Mark Rimple, percussionist Danny Mallon, who is playing several instruments, and Catalina Vicens, who is coming from Italy to play the organetto.
“The concert is about music that would have been around the Medici court,” Douglass related. “It’s music from the Medici library. I also included poetry of Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was probably the first real Renaissance man. He was an amazing politician, he was a very wealthy banker, and he was a hero of Florence. He promoted the arts and he was a poet.”
The Newberry Consort will perform selections by Jacopo da Bologna and Lorenzo da Firenze, among others.
“They’re really amazing composers and the music is not like anything I think most people will have heard before,” Douglass noted. “And there’s some very special dance music on the program. There was a manuscript at the Medici Court that had unique examples of extended dance music. There are 11- and 12-minute dance songs and, like the rest of the music, they’re quite virtuosic.”
“I think this is an absolutely gorgeous repertoire,” Hargis said. “It is really fun to sing. It’s virtuosic in its complexity of rhythms and melodies, and the poetry is just fantastic.”
Hargis also praised the beauty of the combination of instruments and voices.
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She said vocalists will primarily sing together “in two or threes, but there will be a couple of pieces that will just be one singer with instruments. Some of these pieces have the interesting feature of two different texts being sung at the same time. That’s a really special sound.”
Both Douglass and Hargis are excited to welcome organetto player Vicens for this concert.
“She’s quite a virtuoso,” Douglass declared.
“She’s the world’s top player of this instrument,” Hargis added. “She helped advise us on the choice and the building of this instrument. To have her come and perform on it is really special.”
During a Zoom call from Bologna, Italy, organetto player Vicens, who performs all over the world on a number of early music instruments, spoke about how she was looking forward to performing with the Newberry Consort.
Vicens added the organetto to her extensive list of early music instruments that she plays around 2008, she said.
“Many people think that it’s an accordion,” she said. “Other people think that it sounds a little bit like a bagpipe. Some of the people think that it’s like a recorder.”
Vicens described the instrument as “a very small type of organ that is played on the lap or hanging from the shoulders of the player, depending on the size. The keys are perpendicular to the body of the player and played with one hand on the keys or buttons. You have to use one hand for pumping the air.”
The musician finds the organetto to be a fascinating instrument to play, she said. “As a keyboard player, you’re used to using two hands. Here you basically play with one hand. You have all the range of possibilities that having control over the air supply gives you.”
In helping Douglass and Hargis choose an instrument to purchase for the Newberry Consort she said that her suggestion was based on the type of repertoire they wanted played on it.
“There are quite a few builders out there doing an excellent type of reconstruction because we don’t have instruments to copy. They have not survived,” Vicens explained.
She is looking forward to performing on the instrument she helped choose at the upcoming concerts.
“It’s a really exciting program around the Medicis,” she said. Vicens, who is a native of Chile, said, “I’m really excited that now that I’m living in Bologna I’m going to be playing some pieces by Jacopo da Bologna, a very interesting composer.”
The musician, who performs around the world, added, “I’m really looking forward to playing with the Newberry Consort and to visit Chicago for the first time.”
‘Music Fit for the Medicis’
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 18
Where: St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Old Town, 1633 North Cleveland Ave., Chicago
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 19
Where: International House, University of Chicago, 1414 East 59th St., Chicago
When: 3 p.m. Feb. 20
Where: Galvin Recital Hall, Northwestern University, 70 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston
Tickets: $50
Information: 773-669-7335; newberryconsort.org
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
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