DEUS DEUS MEUS

GIOVANNI BATTISTA COCCIOLA 

 

 

During the renaissance and baroque periods, Italy was one of the most influential countries in Western music. Not only many composers from different corners went to Italy to learn from the Italian masters (like the classical case of Heinrich Schütz), but also a great amount of Italian musicians worked in countries like Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, etc.

 

There is enough historical evidence, that many Italian musicians served in the courts of Lithuania and Poland, and probably the most fascinating example was the singer and composer Giovanni Battista Cocciola. Cocciola was born in Northern Italy and went to Vilnius in the beginning of the XVIIth century, where he lived and worked for about 20 years. His musical production is still quite unknown for the public in Europe, but his music shows the textural splendour of the poly-choral pieces and at the same time the delicate touch of the madrigal language.

 

The ensemble Canto Fiorito explores the rich sound pallet, which this music demands, using instruments to replace some voices as it was done at Cocciola’s time. This practice was meant essentially to put the words in the first place, emphasising the musical semantic.

 

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