Duo M&M and Dominique Vellard interpret French, Italian and Spanish Renaissance music, as well as French and Italian early Baroque music. Our programmes mix pieces, with and without voice, arranged by us, that delight listeners with a variety of sounds, rhythms and styles. With this in mind, the group offers the audience several concert programmes:
L’auzel ques sul bouyssou
Italian renaissance and French early baroque music
This programme comprises music by Italian and French composers, including Marchetto Cara, Bartolomeo Tromboncino, Philippe Verdelot, Adrian Willaert, Francesco da Milano, Joanambrosio Dalza, Nicolas Vallet, Antonie Boesset, Gabriel Bataille and Étienne Moulinié.
The program centres on the Renaissance voice genres (16th century) Frottola and Madrigal and the Baroque (17th century) Air de cour. Love is the main topic, sometimes expressed in a melancholic and courteous way and at other times in an ironic and popular tone. Voice pieces are combined with vivacious and colourful instrumental dances and ricercadas for two lutes. These dances, which were originally composed as solos, have the influence of popular tradition and been brilliantly arranged for two instruments (lutes, theorbes and Baroque guitar) by duo M&M.
Lasso ch’i ’ardo
Monody and Italian instrumental mastery
The beginning of the 17th century sees the birth of a new way of understanding and living music. The interest in sound effects in big concert halls, such as the cathedrals of Venice and Rome, increased and encouraged composers to experiment and seek new paths. The frequently used term ‘nuove musiche’ was adopted by publishers of the time in order to stress the divergence from established music models and patterns. The new music was harmonically daring and provocative, and showed little ‘respect’ for Renaissance composition rules.
Arie and madrigals, by composers like Giulio Caccini (Le nuove musiche), Jacopo Peri (Le varie musiche), Girolamo Frescobaldi and Claudio Monteverdi, are examples of nuove musiche pieces interpreted in this program. These are combined with toccate and balli by Girolamo Kapsberger and Alessandro Piccinini, the main Italian early Baroque composers for lute and theorbe. Their music is characterised by great virtuosity, rhythmic freedom and diversity of colour.
Motets and other sacred pieces are by C.Monteverdi - Ghirlanda sacra (1625), A. Grandi (1637) and G.F. Sances (1638). By the 15th and 16th centuries, motets were no longer polytextual - they became a continuous composition with only text and without cantus firmus. This is the origin of the genre for solo voice, with instrument accompaniment.
The first part of this program offers Italian Renaissance music with frottole and madrigals (Marchetto Cara, Bartolomeo Tromboncino), and dances and instrumental pieces for two lutes (Calata, Saltarello and Piva).
Amor Sacro, Amor profano
Villancicos, Psalms and other Spanish and French Renaissance compositions
The programme is focused on the contrast between sacred and secular love in Spanish and French Renaissance culture. It comprises works of Cancionero de Palacio, a Spanish manuscript compiled during a period of about forty years, from the last third of the XVth century until the beginning of the XVIth century. The works deal with a wide range of topics: love, religious, festive, chivalric, satiric, pastoral, burlesque, political, historical, etc., which assemble simple popular compositions but also more elaborated works.
The most relevant music form is the one-voice villancico with vihuela accompaniment, or in the form of a popular song for three and four voices, a genre which is also found in Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro (1536) by Luys de Milán or in Canciones y Villanescas espirituales by a coetaneous author, Francisco Guerrero. In the XVIth century, Pierre Attaignant (1494?-1551?) published the first book of polyphonic “chansons français” (Parisian songs / Air de Cour), a genre developed by composers Claude Sermisy, Jacques Arcadelt and Adrien le Roy. The theme of love made it especially popular in France and soon songs appeared in the form of soloist with the accompaniment of plucked string instruments, in particular, guitar and lute. In contrast to songs with a love theme, Psalms transmit the religious and spiritual message musically in a simpler and more intimate style. Likewise, their diffusion led to a great number of instrumental compositions or for both voice and instruments, as found in Guillaume Morlay’s publications.
