Mar 21, 2025

European Early Music Day

Concert by the Early Music Department of the “Alfredo Casella” Conservatory of L’Aquila

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On the occasion of European Early Music Day, established in 2013 by REMA (Réseau Européen de Musique Ancienne) with the aim of synchronizing the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685) with the spring equinox, the vast and millennial musical heritage of European countries is celebrated on March 21st each year through concerts, events, and performances held simultaneously throughout Europe.

The National Museum of Abruzzo in L’Aquila, in collaboration with the Alfredo Casella State Conservatory of L’Aquila, is also participating in the Early Music Day initiative with the aim of promoting Europe’s historical musical heritage and highlighting the vitality of European musical history from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

The performers of the concert, which will be performed in the Sala Francescana of the MuNDA on Friday, March 21st at 5:00 pm, will be the faculty and students of the Department of Early Music at the Casella Conservatory. With a rich program, they will engage, while retaining the emotions of 21st-century performers, with the intense challenge of creating a profound interaction between the original compositional creation of early music and contemporary audiences.

The conventional boundary between “early music” and Classical-Romantic music dates back to around 1750, the year of Bach’s death, but it was only during the 1920s that the rediscovery of early instruments began and an awareness of their importance for the performance of music from the past developed.

Among the ancestor instruments of today’s orchestral members, the viola holds a particularly prominent place among string instruments, at least for much of the Renaissance. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, only the members of the viola family (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) were considered to play a leading role, while the violin did not generate equal interest, as it was considered a descendant and not co-existent with the viola.

The latter, which usually had six strings, had a clear, sweet, and somewhat faint sound, not as rich and rich as the violin, and was played between the knees, hence the name viola da gamba.

The violin appeared in the early 16th century and was considered an instrument for dancing, while gentlemen, merchants, and other persons of virtue spent their time with violas. Its strings, as they are today, were four, and the tuning was almost always similar to modern tuning. There was a family of violins (soprano, tenor, bass): the viola used today in orchestras corresponds to the alto violin of the 16th century.

The lute is an instrument perfected even before the 16th century: armed with six double strings, it was tuned like the viola. At the beginning of the 16th century, another, lower string appeared. As can be seen in all pictorial reproductions, the neck is bent; Under the strings, between the neck and the plucking point, is the rose, crafted with exquisite woodwork and patterns. During the 17th century, the lute underwent modifications, leading to the theorbo and the “chitarrone.”

Among keyboard instruments such as the organ, clavichord, and virginal, which reached their peak in the 16th century, the single- or double-manual harpsichord was the most complex, producing sound by plucking the strings. It also featured registers that allowed the sound to be modified, imitating the lute, either to increase or to soften its sonority. Already well-known in the 16th century, it experienced a musical flowering in England at the end of the century thanks to the publication of remarkable collections by brilliant composers, who later moved to the Netherlands and Italy. The harpsichord continued to be refined in the 17th and 18th centuries, the centuries of its greatest splendor.

In the sixteenth century, Italy was the birthplace of the great harpsichord makers; in the seventeenth century, important harpsichord makers were in the Netherlands, Germany, and England.