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Mozart's opera Idomeneo is being performed today, but I am planning on taking the train to Innsbruck, mainly for the trip through the mountains. Innsbruck has its own festival right now of early music there will be an opera performance there tonight as well, of La Merope by Riccardo Broschi, though I will probably just come back to Salzburg before. Tomorrow I will be at a matinee performance of Mozart by the Mozarteum Orchestra with an early divertimento, a late piano concerto and the Symphony No. 40. Should be a delight.
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The BBC has an article on one of the most popular and perennial tunes in all of music history: La Folia.
La Folia has a long history. Its distinctive chords first developed out of the folk music of late 15th-Century Portugal, where it was used in popular festivals. Its name – ‘folly’ or ‘madness’ in Italian – refers to the frenzied way peasants twirled to the music. In Santiago de Murcia’s Codice Saldivar No 4, Renaissance writer Covarrubias describes La Folia as ‘very noisy’ while another highlights its ‘vivacity and fire’, its dancers ‘making gestures that awaken voluptuousness’.So, sounds a lot like "Anaconda" by Nikki Minaj!
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In case you missed the reference before.
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Yes, I know, a shockingly abbreviated miscellanea this week. But I've been busy! And there just weren't a lot of interesting items unless you want to read all about the Curtis Institute's long history of sexual abuse problems and their ham-handed attempt to respond to criticism with a cone of silence. So let's end with a couple of envois. First, La Folia in a setting by Corelli:
Next, the overture to Idomeneo by Mozart:
2 comments:
Have been listening to Marin Marais's Pièces de viole, the second book, where he uses La Folia. And Jordi Savall has entire albums devoted to it's use by various composers and in various forms.
Antonio Salieri's 26 Variations on La Folia de Spagna is new to me, though.
Yes, I cast an inquiring and slightly leery glance at the Salieri as well.
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