Alpha Productions' Firenze 1616 features the French period-instrument group
Le Poème Harmonique in a program that explores some of the finer points of Florentine music from around the time of the birth of opera. It was a time when monody was king, characterized by palpitating, highly florid concitato singing; bitter-sounding passing tones; loosely applied rhythms; and somber texts deeply invested in emotion. This would metamorphose, by about 1630, into a sound that was considerably more regular and recognizably Baroque; the stuttering concitato was scaled back, dissonances were a little less biting, and emotion was reined into a manner more in keeping with the mythic and exalted status of the Greco-Roman Gods about whom early operas were written. Many of these developments of standardization followed in the wake of the featured work here, the intermezzo L'Orfeo Dolente (1615) by Domenico Belli, a short work interspersed between acts of a play about Orpheus. The style of L'Orfeo Dolente is so manneristic and difficult that one scholar in the 1930s tried to date its origin to before 1600; contemporary accounts of the work indicate it was famous yet regarded as controversial, suggesting Belli was considered among the avant-garde of his day. As a collection, Firenze 1616 contains some of the most dissonant and challenging pieces of this period.
Le Poème Harmonique's performance here is very restrained, low key, and repays patience. The music itself -- not just L'Orfeo Dolente, but also practically all of it -- is very subdued and serious for the most part; no joyous frottole or fanfares are joined into here. For some listeners this will prove monotonous, but if you are following the libretto, the variety of the instrumentation and generally fine qualities of singing make the program seem to move somewhat faster. It is divided into three parts, of which L'Orfeo Dolente is the last; the other two pull together solo madrigals by Caccini, Claudio Saracini, and Cristofano Malvezzi in such rapid succession it is sometimes difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. There is one instrumental piece of moderate tempo used to divide the first two parts.
Although this era in music is generally symbolized by Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo, its sprightly fanfares and transparently lovely ritornelli are the exception rather than the rule, especially when contrasted with the products of the Caccini School and Florentine monody. Firenze 1616 is more like the real thing; music for highly skilled singers with continuo instruments that nevertheless had one foot in the rarefied realm of late Renaissance figures like Gesualdo and Luzzaschi, yet oddly enough, here that is not as interesting as it might sound. It is hard to put one's finger on what makes Alpha Productions' Firenze 1616 so dull at times;
Le Poème Harmonique seems to be doing what it should, and while the singing is a little inconsistent, it is not enough to matter. Perhaps it has something to do with L'Orfeo Dolente, as in its own time this work was criticized for being unrelievedly depressing, and it may have signaled the first "reform" in opera history, which shook out the mannered harmonic style of the Renaissance. Something about Firenze 1616 inspires a kind of ennui that might be a good fit for a late night seated at a crossword puzzle; otherwise, expect a very active investment in what is essentially a passive experience.