Valente: Intavolatura de Cimbalo

Antonio Valente lived and worked in 16th century Napoli, then under Spanish rule and the cultural hotspot of Europe. Valente's Intavolatura de Cimbalo is the first Neapolitan publication for keyboard instrument andthe first that shows the word harpsichord in the title. This is very important because it shows that Valente (who just one year before published «Versi Spirituali per sonar negli organi») clearly wanted to differentiate the composition style between harpsichord and organ (until that time, but also later, this difference is not clear yet). Intavolatura can be considered as an opera omnia collecta as far as it contains all the musical forms of that time: instrumental music (6 ricercari and 1 fantasia),elaboration on a cantus firmus (a Salve Regina), 4 chansons with diminutions, dances on tenori italiani (Zefiro, Passo e mezzo, Romanesca,Gagliarda Napolitana, Intorcia etc) and balli (Ballo Lombardo etc.)

Sung and played by the Ensemble L'Amorosa Caccia, solo voice and theinstruments recorder and viola da gamba, directed from the harpsichordand virginal by Fabio Antonio Falcone, a specialist in this repertoire (he recorded already works by Cavazzoni, Antico and De Macque for Brilliant).