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There is no period in the history of world literature
in which more was written about love and of a higher quality than
during the Golden Age, and Spanish baroque poetry is perhaps its
most extreme expression. The most inspired Spanish poets wielded
their pens, writing the most poignant verses about one of the most
enduring themes of human existence. In doing so, they often turned
to the lyrical mask of Icarus, Daedalus's foolhardy, young son,
who disregarded his father's warnings and risked drawing too near
to the sun, causing the wax of his wings to melt and converting
his flight to freedom into death.
Icarus was one of the quintessential myths of the Baroque eros and
by merely alluding to love, poets managed to summarise man's whole
destiny: the ascent and the fall. Thus, the succession of images
and references to the myth should be interpreted as metaphors: the
lady is the sun, his desire is the wings and the poetic "I"
is the new Icarus, who in his flight of love dares to fly so high
that he has the audacity to hope for the favour of the lady, who
with cruel disdain pushes him headlong to desperation and the death
of love.
Just as poets were attracted to this subject, the most highly acclaimed
and prestigious Spanish composers of the era -active in the courts
of Philip III and Philip IV- put their musical inspiration at the
service of the most beautiful poems. Apart from the inevitable anonymous
works, the recording also includes music by Manuel Correa, Bernardo
Murillo, Sebastián Durón, Mateo Romero (Maestro Capitán)
and Manuel Machado, taken from the Libro de Tonos Humanos,
a manuscript dating from 1656 held at the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid),
and the Cancionero Poético-Musical Hispánico de
Lisboa, an early seventeenth-century manuscript held at the
Biblioteca de Ajuda (Lisbon).
In short, Icarus marks the poetic and musical journey that has been
used to create an original argument that sings the praises of love
in its many guises. The order of the works recorded was established
according to the different sections of the mythical legend of Icarus
("Wings of Wax", "Icarus", "The Sun",
"The Flight", "The Fall") and which, in turn,
refer to a wide array of metaphors and meanings of love during the
Spanish baroque.
The release of this recording continues Lauda's line of work, bringing
to light 16th- and 17th-century Spanish works,
while continuing to build bridges between music performance based
on historical criteria, philology and advanced musicological researche.
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