On July 26 at the Cantiere Festival in Montepulciano, the ensemble RNCM Strings and Percussion, conducted by Roger Hamilton, performs the definitive version of Claudio Ambrosini’s Tancredi appresso il Combattimento (“Tancredi After the Battle”). Directed by Matelda Cappelletti.

Ambrosini’s work (a dramatic madrigal for soprano, tenor, baritone, theorbo, harpsichord, string quintet and percussion) sets Torquato Tasso’s poem to music, a “modern” version of Monteverdi’s madrigals. Narrator: Christian Federici. Tancredi: Claudio Zazzaro. Clorinda: Ginevra Schiassi.


Claudio Ambrosini writes: 
[…] For Monteverdi, Jerusalem Delivered was the poetic language of his time, for us it’s ‘that time’. We can perhaps only overcome that time gap through the application of a perspectivist’s gaze that focuses in on it, that makes it become a structural element. It may grow, it may drift. But it will always be there. A magnificent starting point.

The composer continues:

So, setting this to music. A first goable path. Give (back) space to the literary level. It should “act”, be a protagonist, alternating with the music. Entering and exiting, balancing, moving from word to sound to song. […] It goes by degrees: hushes, whispers, talking, light singing, madrigal singing, opera singing. […] 

Tancredi appresso il Combattimento was composed in 2017, commissioned by the InCanto and the Reate opera festivals, and premiered at the celebration of Claudio Monteverdi’s 450th birthday. 

Photo: credit by Michele Vino for Fondazione Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, Montepulciano