Caccini: Nuove Musiche - Furio Zanasi - Audio CD (Arrives in 50 days)

In Le Nuove Musiche, baritone Furio Zanasi and theorbo virtuoso Xavier Díaz Latorre return to the revolutionary sound-world of the early seventeenth century, where words, gesture and harmony are fused into a single expressive act. Giulio Caccini’s new aesthetic—clarity of diction, a melody shaped like heightened speech, and an accompaniment reduced to a discreet yet potent basso continuo—marks a decisive break with late Renaissance polyphony. Here, that radical intimacy is heard at close range: every syllable carries dramatic weight, and every turn of the line seems to breathe with the poetry. Alongside Caccini, the programme highlights the dazzling imagination of Girolamo Kapsperger, whose toccatas, dance pieces and passacaglias expand the chitarrone’s colouristic possibilities. Díaz Latorre’s playing moves effortlessly between rhythmic bite and delicate resonance, framing Zanasi’s vocal narrative with an improvisatory freedom that feels both scholarly and spontaneous. The result is a portrait of nobile sprezzatura di canto: an art of singing in which the text leads, rhetoric shapes the musical gesture, and ornament serves meaning rather than display. Recorded in the warm acoustic of the Église Saint Rémi de Franc Waret, this recital invites the listener into the laboratory of the ‘new music’—a pivotal moment when monody, continuo and theatrical affect reshaped European musical language. It is an absorbing, finely judged encounter with two masters of early Baroque expression, and a compelling listening experience for lovers of historical performance.

Label: Passacaille | Origin: Holland