Bembo - Produzioni Armoniche

1 CD - Label: Alpha - ALPHA099 - Clizia Amante Del Sole - Bembo, Antonia - Ensemble: Convoce Coeln

Antonia Bembo (c.1640-c.1710) Clizia amante del sole; habbi pietà di me; Volgete altrove il guardo; S'e legge d'amore; Mi consolo, non son solo; Prélude & Silvains, Robert de Visée; Lamento della Vrigine; Tombeau, Robert de Visée; Anima perfida; Solnate pour violoncelle, Jacchini; Passan veloci l'hore; Beata Sirena; Chaconne, Jacquet de la Guerre; Ha, que l'absence; Mi basta cosi

The musical collection by Antonia Padoani Bembo entitled Produzioni armoniche (Harmonic Productions) contains cantatas and arias that together establish an intriguing portrait of the singer-composer. Born around 1640 in the Veneto as the only child to a medical doctor and his wife, Antonia received a thorough education in music and letters in the 1650s. Documents from that decade reveal that Francesco Cavalli, the foremost Venetian opera composer of the day, served as one of her private tutors, and that she sang with the guitarist-composer Francesco Corbetta. Perhaps relinquishing a promising musical career for love, Antonia obtained the title of ‘Nobile Veneta’ (Noble Venetian) through her marriage to Lorenzo Bembo in 1659. When Lorenzo was called to serve in the War of Candia in 1667-1669, he left her behind in Venice to care for their three young children; he returned from Crete a broken man who now had little regard for his wife. She sued him for divorce; unsuccessful in her attempt, the couple lived separately until she fled Venice for Paris early in 1677. In the preface to Produzioni armoniche, she referred to a person ‘qui mi trasse da Venezia’ (who brought her from Venice). With his connections to the French court and its musical culture, the evidence points to Corbetta as a likely candidate for aiding Antonia's escape; he may well have accompanied her when she sang for Louis XIV, thereby obtaining a life-long pension with which to live in a women's community in Paris. Recorded in July 2005 in the chapel of Notre-Dame de Bon Secours Hospital, Paris.

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