Trento Musicantica - Heavenly and courteous voices

Saturday, November 2, 2024 "Trento Musicantica" presents "La Brillante Miss Turner", an unmissable concert to discover, thanks to the precious rediscovery work of Constanza Leuzzi and with the performance of the Egal Ensemble. The evening will be at the "Castello del Buonconsiglio". A precious opportunity to delve into a very rare repertoire and discover the figure of the English composer Elizabeth Turner. The sixth event of Trento Musicantica, scheduled for Saturday 2 November at 8.30 pm in the "Sala G. Gerola del Castello del Buonconsiglio", proposes the rediscovery of Elizabeth Turner, English singer, cymbalist and composer active in London in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Despite being a prominent artist in her time, with a great career as a singer and harpsichordist, today her music is still unpublished and little performed. The rediscovery of this important figure of the English musical eighteenth century, lived between 1700 and 1756, is the result of the research work of the harpsichordist Costanza Leuzzi who, in addition to reviving her scores, tells the story of her in the concert programme, involving the public in the discovery of her biography. Titled La Brillante Miss Turner, the event features the Egal Ensemble founded by Costanza Leuzzi with Matteo Rozzi, violin, Sara Pozzato, traversiere, Francesco Maria Cataldo, viola da gamba and violon, and Elena Di Marino, soprano. Very little is known about Elizabeth Turner. In 1750 he published a first collection entitled "Twelve Songs with Symphonies and a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord", 12 songs from the English folk tradition orchestrated with different instrumental organics. In 1756 a second collection was published, "A Collection of Songs with Symphonies and a Thorough Bass. With Six Lessons for the Harpsichord", a work in which the composer also ventures with the writing of six lessons for solo harpsichord, in addition to continuing the genre of popular songs inaugurated in the previous publication. The concert program explores the different musical nuances of Elizabeth Turner: a first block of Songs introduces the composer's most loved and frequented genre, showing different levels of song orchestration. There follows a Lesson for harpsichord only taken from the collection of the "Six Lessons for Harpsichord". Elizabeth Turner was also known in her time as a virtuoso singer: between 1744 and 1755 she was involved in numerous concerts alongside important singers of the time and was among the protagonists of some Handelian oratories. The concert aims to pay tribute to the relationship with G. F. Handel by proposing a sonata trio by the great composer, a jewel of Handelian instrumental writing, and the sacred aria Tears assist me from the Esther oratorio. In addition to the great German-born English composer, Elizabeth Turner also showed appreciation for the Italian Arcangelo Corelli, among the authors represented in his self-portrait on the title page of the 1756 work and, in reference to this link, the Sonata X of the Violin and Violon or Cymbal Sonatas of the Italian composer and violinist will be presented in concert. The program concludes with three more Turner Songs from both published volumes.

The concert develops a listening path that sees the musicians shed new light on a little-known repertoire, accompanying the audience in a surprising and fascinating sound panorama full of stories, expressive languages and artistic contaminations.

The next event will be on Friday 8 November in Sala G. Gerola of Castello del Buonconsiglio, scheduled for the screening of the documentary film "La via della coscienza" by Giuseppe Calliari on the life of Laurence Feininger while the musical part will feature the Laurence Feininger vocal group directed by Roberto Gianotti.