I Heard a Voice from Heaven as the Voice of a Great Thunder: Motets of Giacomo Carissimi

Disembodied voices — seemingly from heaven, or elsewhere — feature prominently in the old annals of sacred life. Hungarian Cardinal Peter Pazmany tells us in his 1609 The Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola that an assassin, armed with a sword, stood at Ignatius’ door ready to strike when a mysterious voice called out “What are you doing, you scoundrel?” Alarmed, the would be assassin turned the other way and ran, presumably leaving Ignatius free to establish, with Cardinal Giovanni Morone under the blessing of Pope Julius III, the Collegium Germanicum in 1552, one of the oldest centers of higher learning in Rome.

It was here that the great Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) lived and worked the better part of his life, training illustrious students such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Johann Caspar Kerll, perfecting the practice of recitative and helping to introduce the forms of solo cantata and oratorio. His music was most commonly performed at the Basilica Sant’Apollinare, located directly across the way from the Collegium.

At right: The Collegio Germanico as it appeared in 1755; although an extra floor was added in the 1850s, it appears much the same today. At left: the Basilica Sant’Apollinare.

It is in this last role that Carissimi is best remembered, and his most famous oratorio, Jepthe (1648) is reasonably well-known, performed and recorded with some frequency. That has led to a ‘been there — done that’ kind of mentality regarding the greater body of his work.

Sadly, Carissimi’s own manuscript collection was hauled away for scrap paper during the suppression of the Jesuits in 1783, and posterity is forced to rely on early prints and holograph copies for access to his work, secondary sources that provide knotty challenges of editing and interpretation.

For the past two decades, the Consortium Carissimi, led by Garrick Comeaux — founded in Rome, and now resident in the twin cities of Minnesota — has devoted itself to gathering, dusting off, and editing rare, never before heard compositions from the father of the oratorio.

Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674)

Eight Motets is the fourth Naxos release of Carissimi from Consortium Carissimi. They have worked diligently to rehabilitate forgotten music from the Scuola Romana, or Roman School — early Baroque composers that sought to preserve polyphonic Renaissance practice and serving as a bulwark against the influences of opera and secular, monodic song.

This battle was essentially lost by the time of Carissimi’s death, and his music is both innovative and reactionary, advancing the art of the Baroque while still clinging to Renaissance tradition. To say the least, only top-flight vocalists need apply when it comes to Carissimi, and Comeaux’s Consortium is well-drilled and more than up to the task; they follow the expressiveness and emotional depth of Carissimi’s music with expert ability, as every word or phrase is underscored with some kind of meaning deriving from the text.

Carissimi’s music is rich with strikingly complex musical textures one often associates with late Renaissance music, though this is balanced with the clarity, economy and instrumental accompaniments common to the Baroque. It is truly “the Voice of a Great Thunder.”

David “Uncle Dave” Lewis is the co-host of WTJU’s “The Early Music Show” which airs on Mondays between 7-9 PM. He will present music of Giacomo Carissimi on the upcoming episode of The Early Music Show to air July 24th.

Giacomo Carissimi: Eight Motets
Consortium Carissimi, Garrick Comeaux
Naxos Early Music

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