WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING

Giovanni Legrenzi’s oratory Il Sedecìa, which was performed on Sunday 29th March 1676 in Ferrara’s ”Chiesa della Confraternita della Morte”, was dedicated to Cardinal Sigismondo Chigi, legate of Ferrara and patron of the same confraternity. We learn as much from the oratory’s libretto, published in Ferrara by Alfonso Maresti, who signed the dedication. When he moved to Venice, where he was chorus master at the ”Ospedale dei Mendicanti”, around 1669, Legrenzi did not sever his links with the Ferrara circles. In Ferrara he had been chapel master at the ”Accademia dello Spirito Santo” from October 1656 to the beginning of 1665.

That institution had been founded in 1597 by the Bentivoglio family, who directed it for almost all of the 17th century, supporting the musician and staging his operas and oratorios, some of which on librettos by Ippolito Bentivoglio.

The libretto, by an anonymous author, tells the story of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, who reigned from 598 to 587 B.C. The son of Josiah, he was installed as king in place of Jehoiachin at the age of twenty-one by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who changed his name from Mattaniah to Zedekiah. Zedekiah fell under the ill-fated influence of those who opposed Nebuchadnezzar, ignored the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, and revolted against Babylon. After a long siege, Jerusalem fell, Zedekiah and his sons fled to the Jordan valley but were captured near Jericho.

Nebuchadnezzar had the sons killed under their father’s eyes, and then Zedekiah blinded and sent to Babylon, where he died in prison (Old Testament, Chronicles: 36:11-21; Jeremiah: 39:1-11).

The oratory begins with the fall of Jerusalem and the escape of Zedekiah and his sons; these events are recounted in the first part, while the second one picks up again with the fugitives’ apprehension and ends with the tragic epilogue.

The score, for voices and continuo, assigns the various registers according to the characters’ ”political” and dramaturgical roles, following an established practice in Baroque theatre music: soprano for the two sons, alto for the Narrator, tenor for Zedekiah, and bass for Nebuchadnezzar. The two kings are given the lower registers, with Nebuchadnezzar’s authority embodied by the lowest of all. In addition, there are a Chorus of Jews (SSATB) and a Chorus of Chaldeans (ATB).

Riccardo Favero’s instrumentation has Zedekiah supported by the viola da gamba, Nebuchadnezzar by the organ, each son by a violin, and the Narrator by the theorbo, while the Choruses are accompanied by three trombones and two cornets; keyboards and the bass bowed instruments are employed for the recitatives (the records of Venice’s ”Fava” Church mention a performance with theorbo, violone and spinet). Since, as it is often the case, the score has no instrumental introductions or an epilogue, to open the two parts of the oratory and close the second the present recording resorts to chamber sonatas taken from Legrenzi’s first instrumental collection, Sonate a due, e tre Op. 2, published in Venice in 1655 by Francesco Magni.