Regina Iberica (ES)

Delia Agúndez, sopran

Víctor Sordo, tenor

Antoine Ladrette, violončelo

Laura Casanova, čembalo in umetniško vodstvo

About the artists
A long trajectory in Spanish Baroque music, with singing and a focus on the most recent historical criteria is what characterizes Regina Ibérica, created in 1998 by Laura Casanova. In 2015 they recorded their third album 'The 12 Musicians of Iriarte' (Lindoro). It groups works of Spanish composers in the course of three centuries. Following the steps of the poem 'The Music' by Tomás de Iriarte, this record offers retrievals of unpublished works and the first recordings of published ones, as well as versions of known works in the world of Early Music. Regina Ibérica has performed at the Early Music Festival in St. Petersburg and in the Moscow Conservatory. They have also performed in several Spanish cities, and in Bremen, Budapest, Munich, Bergen, Warsaw, Gdansk, Paris, Rome, and Brussels. Currently, Regina Ibérica is managing projects in Japan, Colombia and Spain. Their first two records are: 'It is love, ay, ay', with songs of Spanish Baroque, and “Handel before 'The Messiah’”, the cantatas that Handel later transformed into choirs of “The Messiah”, both records released by the record company Verso.

In concert and in camera music and opera, Laura Casanova is devoted to recitativo and bajo continuo. From Orfeo of Monteverdi to Le nozze de Figaro of Mozart, she has gained a lot of experience in this field. She recorded 3 CDs with Regina Iberica. 2015: ‘Iriarte and his musicians’ (Lindoro). ‘Es el amor, ay, ay’ (Verso) and ‘Handel before The Messiah’ (Verso). With Trío de Damas (Arsis) she interpreted Italian women composers of the 17th century. She has played concerts in Switzerland, Germany, France, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Norway, Russia (Saint Petersburg, Moscow), and most festivals in Spain.

For more than two decades violoncellist Antoine Ladrette has focused his research on musical heritage in Spain and Europe in the 17^th and 18^thth centuries. He recreated the opera Las Amazonas de España, Madrid, 1720, and led with violinist Isabel Serrano the Músicos del Buen Retiro Ensemble (CD Harmonia Mundi MAA, 2005). He is member of Regina Ibérica (dir. L. Casanova), El Concierto Español (dir. E. Moreno), and Le Concert des Nations (dir. J. Savall). His work includes musical scores and libretto’s edition, and pedagogical scores for bass bow instruments. He teaches in Vallée de Chevreuse’s conservatory (France) and has an intense collaboration with Versailles Baroque Musique Center productions in the Palace.

For more than two decades violoncellist Antoine Ladrette has focused his research on musical heritage in Spain and Europe in the 17^th and 18^thth centuries. He recreated the opera Las Amazonas de España, Madrid, 1720, and led with violinist Isabel Serrano the Músicos del Buen Retiro Ensemble (CD Harmonia Mundi MAA, 2005). He is member of Regina Ibérica (dir. L. Casanova), El Concierto Español (dir. E. Moreno), and Le Concert des Nations (dir. J. Savall). His work includes musical scores and libretto’s edition, and pedagogical scores for bass bow instruments. He teaches in Vallée de Chevreuse’s conservatory (France) and has an intense collaboration with Versailles Baroque Musique Center productions in the Palace.

Víctor Sordo studied piano, choir conducting and singing in Badajoz and Seville. He completed his studies with Lambert Climent, Isabel Álvarez, Lluis Vilamajó, Josep Cabré, Jan van Elsacker, Fernando Eldoro, Peter Phillips, Graham O'Reilly, and others. He performs often as soloist with Le Concert des Nations, Vespres d'Arnadí, Capilla Real de Madrid, Forma Antiqua, Orquesta Barroca Catalana, Academia 1750 and La Galania, and with the conductors Jordi Savall, Aaron Zapico, Hiro Kurosaki, Josep Vila, Daniel Espasa, Fausto Nardi and others. He also performs with several groups, including Collegium Vocale Gent, Ghislieri Choir & Consort, Arsys, Ensemble Zefiro, Regina Iberica, Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, Hesperion XXI, La Fenice and others.

Delia Agúndez took a higher diploma in singing with brilliant results at the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona. Her solid musical career, which encompasses a wide variety of music from the Middle Ages to the latest avant-garde, has taken her all over Europe, South America and Asia. She has performed as a soprano soloist at several oratories and masses with orchestras and she has also sung with several European ensembles, including Pygmalion, Collegium 1704, Regina Iberica, Capella de Ministrers Ensemble Elyma, Música Ficta, Cinco Siglos and La Bellemont, at Early Music Festivals in Utrecht, Paris, La Chaise-Dieu, Ambronay, Royaumont, Eisenach, Dresden, Beijing, Bogotá, Diamantina (Brazil) and many others.

About the concert programme
The programme includes unknown and rare pieces from the Spanish musical heritage, most of them profane. It is a type of music that was cultivated in the nobles’ houses, theatres, the Royal house, chapels, and the court, which until 1700 housed the Habsburg dynasty and later the Bourbons.

All musical pieces are written for one or two voices with basso continuo, which is an abbreviated formula of musical writing: the composer writes only the lines of the voices, and for the accompaniment only one pentagram that can be interpreted by several instruments, in our case the harpsichord and the violoncello, leaving much space for improvisation.

This year, 2016, is the 300th anniversary of the death of the Spanish composer Sebastián Durón (1600–1716), the pioneer of the Italian style in opera, which was to become popular after his time. The programme includes two of his pieces: one on a religious theme “Ay de mí, que el llanto y la tristeza” (“Alas, that crying and sadness”), which represents a constant in religious Spanish music, i.e. guilt that is unforgivable by God, who is felt as inflexible. The second theme is a fragment of an opera that Regina Iberica has recovered for our most recent record: “The twelve musicians of Iriarte” (2015), with its characteristic mythological figures.

The core of the programme groups comic or lighter pieces with comic themes, dialogues of popular characters distanced from nobility and from the feelings of mythological figures (love is paid by love, it is better paid by money). The characters used to be servants, estranged from epic feelings and eternal love.

Music from the Spanish Baroque plays with syncopation, alternation of beats, strong and abutted rhythms, popular forms such as couplets and refrains, while the texts also play with contrasts: “oh yes / oh no”, “I want to die / I want to live”, “to live is to die / to die is to live”, “ah sweet deceit, ah traitor praise”; there is much presence of the “ay” (“oh”) in both meanings: comic and filled with coquetry, or as a sign of profound grief.

We are confident that, despite the distance imposed by the language barrier, the musical pieces will touch the public because they reflect intense, vital contradictions: love as delicious torment and more important than death itself, or the vitality of coquetry. All presented with a sober music with few elements, stunning in its simplicity, powerful in its strength and passion, and touching in its tenderness.

Laura Casanova, direction and harpsichord

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