CONCERTS
Every year, the Association of the Friends of the Château de Bournazel organises a rich cultural season in order to revive this jewel. The château hosts musical and theatrical events, university symposiums, artists’ residences, all of which highlight the extraordinary diversity of the European Renaissance.
PROGRAMME 2020
From August 3 to 5, 2020, the early music ensemble Tasto Solo offers , as part of its brand-new artists residency at Château de Bournazel, a series of three exceptional concerts under the title ‘Virtuosity and Refinement at the Turn of the Renaissance’. Three evenings in the exceptional setting of Bournazel’s church and recently restored château, illustrating in music the trajectory of an ensemble now central in the European cultural landscape.
Monday, August 3rd, 8pm
FRANCESCO DEGLI ORGHANI
The Florentine organetto in the 14th century
It is around the organetto of Guillermo Pérez that the Tasto Solo ensemble was formed at the beginning of the 2000s. A noble instrument, associated with the great composers and artists of the late Middle Ages, the organetto is one of the great representatives of the musical aesthetics of the Gothic and the early Renaissance. Played on the musician’s leg, the latter plays the keys of the keyboard with one hand while with the other he controls the bellows placed at the back of the instrument. The bellows are very sensitive and make it possible to control the air pressure, enriching the interpretation with all the possibilities of wind instruments: vibrato, accents, dynamics…
In this concert-discovery, Guillermo Pérez weaves the portrait of Francesco Landini, nicknamed ‘Francesco of organs’, the great Florentine musician and first known master of this astonishing instrument with its incredible sound and expressive capacities.
Guillermo Pérez, organetto
David Mayoral, percussion
Tuesday, August 4th, 8pm
SALVE PSALLENTES
Marian liturgies of the Buxheim Codex
Since its first recording, “Meyster ob allen Meystern”, Tasto Solo has paid special attention to the Buxheim Codex. This manuscript, copied in Germany around the second half of the 15th century, is a fundamental source for understanding the development of keyboard music before 1500. After a second discographic project, “Le chant de leschiquier”, Tasto Solo now devotes itself to the third and last part of this series, which is dedicated to the Marian repertoire preserved in this precious manuscript. The program of this concert reconstructs the intimate connections between instrumental practices and the flamboyant vocal liturgies of the time, especially those of the small private chapels, typical of châteaux and palaces, which celebrated the daily office of the ‘Salve’ to the Virgin.
Barbara Zanichelli, soprano
Anne-Kathryn Olsen, soprano
Marine Fribourg, mezzo
Albert Riera, tenor
David Catalunya, clavisimbalum
Bor Zuljan, lute
Berengaria Sardin, harp
Pau Marcos, bow fiddle
Guillermo Pérez, organetto and direction
Wednesday, August 5, 8pm
EROS & SUBTILITAS
Fantasies and madrigals by Vincenzo Ruffo
The Tasto Solo Ensemble is currently one of the greatest specialists in late 15th century repertoires. Thanks to its in-depth knowledge of the changes that occurred in musical creation from the 1500s onwards, Tasto Solo is developing a series of projects at Bournazel on the music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including this brand-new program dedicated to Vincenzo Ruffo, Kapellmeister of the Milan Cathedral and a fine composer of the early Renaissance.
His very particular style presents a mixture between modernity and a taste for the past. The main aesthetic topos of the Renaissance, the love songs in French and Italian typical of the madrigals of the mid-16th century, and the search for a subtle and archaic aesthetic, at the limits of rhythmic and melodic finesse, in his fantasies called ‘Capricci in Musica’, are thus brought into dialogue.
Anne-Kathryn Olsen, soprano
Riccardo Pisani, tenor
Bor Zuljan, Renaissance lute
Bérengère Sardin, Renaissance harp
Pau Marcos, viole
Bertrand Cuiller, harpsichord
Guillermo Pérez, organetto & direction
Information & reservations
Ticket Prices :
– one concert : 25 €
– all three concerts : 60 €
Under 25s :
– one concert : 20 €
– all three concerts : 50 €
E-mail : chateau.de.bournazel@gmail.com
tél. : 06 65 54 12 42 (during Château opening hours)
Previous Performances
2020 - Ensemble Tasto Solo - « Virtuosity and Refinement at the turn of the Renaissance »
Three concerts by an ensemble now central to the European cultural landscape, featuring repertoires from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.
2019 - Ensemble Tasto Solo - Anna Inglese
Concert dedicated to Anna Inglese, one of the few professional singers working in Italy in the 15th century, whose “soft and subtle voice, not human but divine” had been noted in 1455.
2019 - Carte blanche to the La Lyra ensemble
Three concerts devoted to the extraordinary evolution of keyboard instruments during the Renaissance, through three original and rare approaches.
2018 - Keyboards in the Renaissance
Ensemble TASTO SOLO (Guillermo Perèz, organetto, David Catalunya, clavisimbalum and Angélique Mauillon, renaissance harp) Enea Sorini, tenor and Corina Marti, Renaissance harpsichord Pierre Hantaï, harpsichord
2017 - Ensemble Doulce Mémoire
Made up of a team of faithful and close-knit musicians and singers, the Doulce Mémoire ensemble has been involved for more than twenty-five years in artistic adventures that are always innovative, with the regular participation of actors and dancers.
Crédit photographique : Robin .H. Davies
The Association of the Friends of Château de Bournazel was created in January 2012 with the aim of promoting this exceptional Historic Monument by organising cultural events contributing to the enhancement of the artistic heritage of the Renaissance. The Association, through its actions, aims to encourage the reception of the public but also of researchers specialising in the period. In the same way, the association provides human, material and financial support for the conservation, restoration, protection and accessibility of the Château.
To support the Association and participate in the development of Château de Bournazel, become a member.
