The Fantasticus Lute

The Fantasticus Lute

Il Libro Primo d'Intavolatura di Lauto, Rome 1611, by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (Venice, c.1580-Rome, 1651). Fascinating and inspiring music by one of the most extraordinary composers of Italianseicento.

The project:

Fundraising for the reproduction of the phonogram Liuto phantasticus, Libro Primod'Intavolatura di Lauto, published in Rome in 1611 by Giovanni GirolamoKapsberger(Venice, c.1580-Rome, 1651), recorded in Havana, Cuba in February and March 2019.

My name is Aland López, Cuban musician,performer of Renaissance and Baroque repertoires written for early plucked string instruments as archlute, theorbo, baroque and renaissance guitaramong others.

I have been studying for several years the work for lute of Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (Venice ca. of 1580 - Rome in 1651) documentary treasure full of universality and contemporaneity.

Kapsberger, from a very young age, was linked to the main Italian artistic circles.Was member of the Academia degli Umristi, one of the most famous in Rome and at the same time had his own academy where theoreticians, poets and musicians met together with the Italy's best voices to interpret the genres of that time. He was part of the Pope court of Urban VIII (MaffeoBarberini) and received from him and his nephew Francesco Barberini the patronage for the development of his career as a composer. His music was part of the repertoire that was sung within the Sistine Chapel.

His musical production consists of several books of Villanele, cantatas, as well as an opera dedicated to San Ignacio de Loyola. Within the work written for plucked string instruments are several books for theorbo.

The Il Libro Primo d'Intavolatura di Lauto, publicated in Rome in 1611,integrally recorded in this phonogram, is Kapsberger's only contribution to the laudistic repertoire that has reached our times. The anthology was printed with the approval of Filippo Nicolini, his friend and member of L'Accademia degli Umoristi, choosing the works that probably already circulating in manuscript from in the environment of the academies.

The book contains twelve gallants, twelve correntes and eight tocatas, the latter considered to be one of the best exponents of the sort in the Italian repertoire for cordphone instruments of the seventeenth century.

The incomparable originality and creative ingenuity of this composer led him to excel in the Roman music scene and receive the nickname of iltedesco della tiorba.

The diffusion of this work is of vital importance for its study, comprehension and enjoyment, directed to a very diverse public that includes scholars, interpreters or music lovers eager to know repertoires so little divulged, but of an amazing wealth. The help requested will be used for the printing of the phonogram and not only will my dream of many years of study and work be fulfilled, but also to reach a large number of people who can enjoy a vision of the work for Lute by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger with an interpretation made from another very different latitude, the Caribbean, Havana.

Who I am:

In 1994, together with my wife, Teresa Paz, I founded Conjunto de Música Antigua Ars Longade la Habana with which we have presented ourselves in the most prestigious music halls in Europe, United States of America and Latin America and made more than 15 record productions dedicated to the rescue of the Hispanic American musical heritage from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, which have received important awards from specialized critics and magazines such as Diapasón, Clásico, Le Monde de la Musique among others.

As a soloist I have performed in numerous venues in Cuba, Spain, Italy, Colombia, Slovenia, Croatia and Mexico, as well as courses in historical interpretation at prestigious institutions in Cuba, Spain, France, Germany, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador.

I am currently co-artistic director and founder of the Esteban Salas ancient Music Festival in Havana, which takes place in the historic center of this city and is a fundamental space for more than 20 years for the dissemination and of historically informed interpretation of the ancient repertoires.

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To what do we allocate your contributions?

They will be used for the manufacture of the CD and its promotion

Scheduled calendar

Once the campaign is finished and the goal is reached, it will be possible to start the production and duplication of the CD.