Official release: May 2024
In May of 2023, the Viadana Collective embarked on its first large project and toured Switzerland and Italy with a programme centered around the sacred monodies of Lodovico Viadana. We then recorded this music at the Basilica palatina di Santa Barbara in Mantua, a stone-throw away from where Viadana himself worked at the turn of the seventeenth century, with the beautiful Renaissance organ (1565) of Graziadio Antegnati. This debut album will be released in May 2024 by Passacaille Records.
In 1614, Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (1560–1627) published his most important collection of monodies. A truly monumental contribution to the vocal solo repertoire, it comprises one hundred motets with basso continuo, twenty-five for each of the four main vocal registers. This collection survives today in only two copies of its 1615 German print with the title Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola.
Overlooked in modern times, it has so far remained in the shadow of Viadana’s earlier publications . With this project, the nine soloists of the Viadana Collective explore these forgotten motets and present them alongside organ improvisations and works for four, five, six and eight voices and instruments. The beauty of this music is revealed through sonically varied and richly adorned renditions making the most of the magnificent acoustics of the Basilica palatina di Santa Barbara and the glorious radiance of its 16th-century Antegnati organ.
The Viadana Collective 