Citadel Of Song (Ballate From Boccaccios Decameron)

As the Black Death ravages their city, ten people leave Florence and go into the countryside to build a fortress of songs, stories and dances that will protect them from pandemic induced soul-destroying fear and creeping dispassion. The seven young women and three young men who flee Florence spend ten days feasting, conversing and telling stories. At the end of each day, when ten stories have been told by each of the ten storytellers, one of them sings a song. The lyrics to the songs by Boccaccio are given, the music is left to the imagination of the reader. All ten of Boccaccios Decameron songs are in ballata form, a typical 14th century Italian song form. I plunged into the surviving codices, looking for ballate that most closely matched the syllable count; and, after carefully following the underlay of the original borrowed songs (exquisitely florid phrases, funkily syncopated hockets, rest-broken words and all), took them to my bandmates for us to use as the starting point in our (often very quick) journey to somewhere else entirely. Caitriona OLeary

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Details

Format: CD
Artist: Anakronos, Caitriona Oleary
Release Date: 14 October 2022
Genre: Classical Music
Label: Heresy Records
Distributor: MGM Music