Two concerts by Ensemble Salomone Rossi in Prague

Villa Bertramka, 8th July 2023
Synagogue of Jerusalem, 9th July 2023
Organization: Mozart Society in the Czech Republic and Czech Council of Jewish Women
With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
With the patronage of Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Prague

Villa Bertramka

With the organizers, Milada Jonasova and Alice Vesela

Fabrizio Iurlano, director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Prague, presenting the event

Photo by Michal Navratil

Photo by Milada Jonasova

Synagogue of Jerusalem, 9th July 2023 

With Italian Ambassodor in Prague, S.E. Mauro Marsili 

With Italian Ambassodor Mauro Marsili and the organizers, Milada Jonasova and Alice Vesela

Photo by Milada Jonasova

Photo by Marta Fumagalli

Read the presentation to the concert in the website of the Istituto di Cultura Italiana in Prague

Listen to the presentation for Cult di Radio Popolare
from minute 29,50 to minute 38,27

The Songs of Solomon, Salomone Rossi’s best-known work, was published in Venice in an elegant edition in 1623 by the famous printers Pietro and Lorenzo Bragadin; in this collection 33 texts including Psalms, Hymns, Prayers and Synagogue Songs are set to music. The most interesting aspect is the attempt to overcome the common customs of the Jewish tradition which imposed the observance of the rules handed down over the centuries also in the musical field: monodic singing or the cantillation of biblical texts, reserving the execution of cheerful and joyful music to moments of community life. Salomone Rossi, a very talented artist, for these compositions chose to use the techniques of Renaissance ecclesiastical sacred music. These compositions were performed in the synagogue in Mantua and in places of Jewish study in Mantua and Venice, until the invasion of the Duchy of Mantua in 1630 by the Emperor Ferdinand of Habsburg, which led to persecution, exile and expulsion to other places of residence of Jewish groups; the work almost fell into oblivion.

The Venetian musician Benedetto Marcello in the work L’Estro poetico armonico set to music the texts of Girolamo Ascanio Giustiniani, a paraphrase on the first 50 Psalms of David. 2024 marks the 300th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the collection. A curiosity characterizes the originality of this work: within some compositions there are eleven Jewish Intonations, synagogue songs, which Marcello had heard sung in the Sephardic and Ashkenazi synagogues in Venice. It is not clear why the musician wanted to include these melodies in his compositions, which he entrusted to solo male voices, without any instrumental accompaniment; we do not know exactly what the Venetian nobleman’s relationship was with the Jewish communities present in Venice, what was the meaning of this cultural operation. However, we are grateful to Benedetto Marcello for the transcription of these eleven Intonations, which have thus come down to us intact, while in general the synagogue heritage handed down orally is subject to significant modifications or to oblivion. The synagogue melodies are performed by the singer without any musical accompaniment and are then taken up and reworked in the following arias.

Read the article on 9Colonne
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