Tag: Vox Luminis

Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo by Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Vox Luminis, Wigmore Hall, 1 October 2023

“Just one cornetto“ in our concert – our cornetto looked like the middle one.

We also heard and saw a beautiful cetterone, an instrument about which I needed to do research afterwards. Likewise the lirone, (see below).

Lira de gamba (which I think is the same thing as a lirone), GeorgWildermann, CC BY-SA 4.0

But the thing that made this concert so very special was the extraordinary piece we heard. Emilio de’ Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall information-rich (if you look at the programme notes) stub for this concert.

Those programme notes describe the piece as an:

uncategorisable piece of music-theatre [which was] premièred in Rome in February 1600…

Coincidentally, I had only recently put on, at Hampton Court Palace, my own uncategorisable piece of music-theatre from around that period

Hampton Court, Tennis, Gresham, Music & Drama

…but I digress.

Vox Luminis are a wonderful outfit who don’t tend to disappoint. This evening was no exception. They perform with smiles on their faces and clearly celebrate each other’s and their joint success.

Here is a trailer of Vox Luminis performing this very piece in 2021 in Utrecht. Different soloists, but you can’t have everything:

Janie and I are not easily wowed these days – we’ve seen a lot of excellent concerts in our time, but this one blew our metaphorical socks off. Delicious music, sounding a little different from anything we’ve heard before from that period. Sweeter than Monteverdi oratorios, but loads going on in the soundscape.

A real treat.

Evening and Morning, Vox Luminis, Wigmore Hall, 25 October 2015

This Sunday evening concert was part of the Henry Purcell season at the Wigmore Hall. Vox Luminis, under the direction of Lionel Meunier, treated us to 17th century English choral works.

Here is the Wigmore Hall stub for the concert, which tells you everything you might possibly want to know about the artists and the works performed.

We had arranged to take the next day off and this concert was just what the doctor ordered for us at the end of a busy weekend.

Don’t take our word for it; David Truslove of bachtrack.com gave the concert a rave review – here.

I was fascinated by these instruments, so Janie took a picture of them during the interval:

Below is an example of Vox Luminis performing one of the John Blow pieces we heard:

Below is a full concert video of a similar Vox Luminis concert at an early music festival from a few week’s earlier – no Blow, but Purcell and Morley:

Lovely stuff.