Early Music
The Polychoral Splendors of Renaissance Florence
Davitt Moroney, director
Striggio’s Missa sopra Ecco sì
beato giorno • Works by Cavazzoni, Rossetto, and Striggio

Don’t miss this exceptional program featuring both an encore performance of the sold-out, musical tour de force of the 2008 Berkeley Festival and the world premieres (at least since the 16th century!) of two other gigantic Renaissance works recently reconstructed by UC Berkeley musicologist and renowned harpsichordist Davitt Moroney. Written for the 16th-century Medici court and an example of Florentine art at its most spectacular, Alessandro Striggio’s Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorno in 40 and 60 parts is the largest known contrapuntal choral work in Western music. The score was long reputed to be lost, but was then rediscovered in France by Moroney himself, who also here conducts the musical forces that include His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts and five different Bay Area choirs. “A masterpiece…not just the choral event of the year but possibly of the decade” (The Guardian, London).

Program: Cavazzoni: Intonazione for organ • Rossetto: Consolamini popule meus for 50 voices • Four instrumental canzonas • Anonymous: Unum cole deum, ne iures vana per eum, canon for 40 voices • Striggio: Motet Ecce beatam lucem for 40 voices; Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorno, for 40 and 60 voices