UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A work by 18th-century Italian composer Antonio Sacchini never performed in North America, discovered as part of Distinguished Professor Marica Tacconi’s research on the neglected music of the Ospedaletto of Venice, will be performed by the Penn State School of Music's Early Music Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 8, in the Recital Hall. Tickets are $12.50 for adults and $5 for Penn State students with ID.
The concert will feature music by marginalized composers and musicians. The Sacchini piece, a duet for two sopranos, strings and basso continuo, is titled “Giacché mia sposa sei/Veni electa mea.” Master of music student Allie Brault and bachelor of music student Erica Harvey will be the featured sopranos.
Tacconi brought the piece back to light in collaboration with the Venice Music Project Ensemble and through a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
“We transcribed the music into modern notation and performed the work in Venice last July for the first time in nearly 250 years,” she said. “It’s part of a broader project, based on my research, centered on the neglected music of the Ospedaletto of Venice, a charitable institution that, starting in the 16th century, took in orphaned and foundling girls and offered them a superb music education. It will be exciting to bring this beautiful work to Penn State, presenting it for only the second time in modern days.”
Tacconi will introduce the duet at the concert with a brief presentation that will shed light on the institution, some of its composers and music teachers, and the marginalized young women (the orphans) who found their “voice” through music.
Other works on the program include selections by Ignatius Sancho, who was born on a slave ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and eventually became an active abolitionist in England; Salomone Rossi, an Italian Jew who was a highly respected musician at the court of Mantua; and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, who dedicated every piece of music she wrote to King Louis XIV.
“She (Elisabeth) is one of the rare women able to both compose and be well-regarded in society [during that time period],” noted James Lyon, director of the Early Music Ensemble. “Our selection is the prologue to the earliest opera composed by a French woman, in 1694.”
The Early Music Ensemble — formerly called the Baroque Ensemble — aspires to play music from the late Renaissance, the Baroque era and the early Classical period in a historically informed manner. It is principally composed of string players using baroque bows, but wind and brass instruments are occasionally featured, as well as vocalists.