Home listening - Amadio Freddi, anyone?

The Guardian 0

The Gonzaga Band do this late Renaissance composer proud, while Exaudi’s new Gesualdo disc is a stunner

• Little is known about the Italian composer Amadio Freddi (c1580-1634). The Gonzaga Band’s recording of his Vespers (1616) (Resonus), together with detailed liner notes by the ensemble’s director and cornett player, Jamie Savan, may be the most extensive material yet available.

As a boy and young man, Freddi was a professional singer in the basilica of S Antonio in Padua. After working in Treviso, then Vicenza, he returned to Padua to the top job of maestro di cappella. Whether or not he knew Monteverdi’s famous version of the Vespers, Freddi’s music has its own virtues. Less brilliant in impact, it has clear, light textures with unusual voice-instrument combinations. The disc also included short works by some of Freddi’s contemporaries, including Giovanni Gabrieli.