La Senna festeggiante by Antonio Vivaldi
Three surviving Vivaldi works belong to a highly interesting secular vocal genre, widely cultivated in the late seventeenth century and most of the eighteenth century, commonly known as the serenata. The term serenata is derived not from sera (evening), which is a false etymology, but from sereno (a clear sky, particularly at night), and this word reflects the fact that such works were commonly performed not in theatres, complete with costumes, scenery and stage machinery, but in improvised, less formal surroundings where either the audience or the performers, or even both, might find themselves under the skies. Unlike operas, which were performed on several nights and could be revived in other seasons and in different locations, serenatas were generally “occasional” works in the strictest sense of that term: they were performed once, and then, their purpose accomplished, usually forgotten, unless the composer chose to recycle some of their material. Serenatas usually formed the centrepiece of an elaborate festa commemorating some significant and welcome event in the life of a prominent person or family, such as a birth, a birthday, a name-day, a wedding, a visit by a high-ranking person or a peace treaty.  La Senna festeggiante is the fruit of a close relationship that Vivaldi enjoyed between 1724 and 1729 with the French ambassador to Venice, Jacques-Vincent Languet, comte de Gergy. Like other foreign diplomatic representatives in Venice, whose social life was very restricted on account of a law that prevented Venetian patricians from frequenting them except by special permission, the French ambassadors liked, on 25 August (their sovereign’s name-day, the feast of St Louis), to hold a festa commemorating the event. It was probably for this day in 1726 that Vivaldi composed La Senna festeggiante. The year of composition is easy to establish, at any rate, from the characteristics of the paper used for the manuscript, which was copied out by the composer’s father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi (with a few autograph insertions), and from the pattern of textual concordances, literary and musical, that link the serenata to both earlier and later works. Almost a year previously, on 12 September 1725, Vivaldi had written a shorter, twovoice serenata (rv 687) for Languet celebrating the wedding of the youthful Louis xv to the Polish princess Maria Leszczynska. In 1726 there was a special reason to produce a more elaborate work, one more overtly paying homage to the French nation in addition to its monarch: the visit of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, the famous patron of the arts resident in Rome. A member of the Venetian patriciate, Ottoboni had earlier fallen foul of the Republic’s laws by accepting a position at the Vatican as Protector of the Affairs of France, and for several years had been banished from his native city. His triumphant return in 1726, marked by a multitude of musical events, set the seal on the normalization of diplomatic relations between Venice and France. So on this occasion the librettist, Domenico Lalli (a frequent collaborator of Vivaldi), and the composer were effectively paying tribute to three people: Languet (as host), Louis (as French monarch, on his name-day) and Ottoboni (as distinguished visitor and symbol of reconciliation between Venice and France).
In setting this text, Vivaldi chose to pay a personal homage to Louis and the French nation by introducing, from time to time, significant and clearly audible elements of the French style (as he had not done in his earlier serenata for the ambassador and does hardly anywhere else in his surviving music). Besides the use of aggressively dotted rhythms (conventionally indicated by the phrase “alla francese” in Italian scores of the time), we find typically French melodic and harmonic inflections and the aping of a French-style overture in the Ouvertur (Giovanni Battista Vivaldi’s spelling) opening the second part. So La Senna festeggiante is the main testimony to an important episode in Vivaldi’s career, and is also a reflection of the high reputation he earned in France following the publication, in 1725, of Le quattro stagioni. Not for nothing did the Mercure de France term him, in October 1725, “le plus habile compositeur qui soit à Venise” (“the ablest composer in Venice”).
Michael Talbot

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Italian born Alfredo Bernardini studied early music in the Netherlands, where he graduated in 1987. He has since performed all over the world as a member of ensembles such as Hesperion XX, Le Concert des Nations, La Petite Bande, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, Bach Collegium Japan and others. He has played in more than 100 recordings. He is a founding member the ensemble Zefiro, which has been awarded important international prizes.
He has been guest director of baroque orchestras all over Europe, in Canada, Australia, Venezuela, Cuba Israel and with the European Union Baroque Orchestra. After teaching at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and at the ESMUC of Barcelona, he is currently professor at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg.

Hiro Kurosaki was born in Tokyo and raised in Vienna, where he trained at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst (MDW) according to the ancient tradition of the Viennese violin school under the guidance of Franz Samohyl. After establishing himself at the “Henrik Wieniawski” and “Fritz Kreisler” international competitions, he was invited as a soloist to perform with prestigious orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker and Mozarteum Orchester. His interest in historically informed performance practice matured and he worked with leading artists in the sector such as René Clemencic, Jordi Savall, John Eliot Gardiner and William Christie. He has performed in renowned festivals and concert halls as a soloist and violin conductor of Clemencic Consort, London Baroque, Cappella Colononiensis and Les Arts Florissants. He recorded the complete violin Sonatas by W.A. Mozart on period instruments with Linda Nicholson on the fortepiano, and was awarded the Japan Academy Award. The performance of the complete sonatas by L. van Beethoven is another one of the duo’s pioneering projects. He is currently a professor at the MDW in Vienna and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, he teaches at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena since 2022.

Marco Testori studied organ and cello at the “G. Verdi” Conservatory in Milan, specializing with J. Goritzky, M. Flaksmann and E. Bronzi. He specialized in early music at the “Schola Cantorum Basilensis” with C. Coin and has collaborated with prestigious ensembles, including I Barocchisti, Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, Accordone, Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla, Ensemble Arte-Musica, Il Cardellino, Ensemble Claudiana, La Divina Armonia and Il Suonar Parlante, with whom he records for Decca, Opus 111, Naxos, Sony, Amadeus and Fuga Libera. From 1994 to 2004, he was the first cello with Il Giardino Armonico, taking part in major international festivals. He is currently the principal cello of the Atalanta Fugiens ensemble directed by Vanni Moretto. He collaborated with the Dolce & Tempesta ensemble for the recording of Nicola Fiorenza’s concertos for cello and strings and with I Musici di Santa Pelagia for the works of Carlo Graziani. Since 2013 he is a Professor of baroque cello at Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena since 2022.

The Hungarian soprano Zsófia Szabó began her musical education at the age of 7. She played the cello for 12 years and was influenced by making music in a string orchestra and string quartet, but in 2012 she switched to singing and studied with Krisztina Czeller for 3 years. She began her bachelor studies in 2015 at the University Mozarteum Salzburg in the class of Univ.Prof. Barbara Bonney and graduating in 2019. She is currently studying master singing in the class of Christoph Strehl and baroque singing with Andreas Scholl. As a member of the Bach Choir, she took part in numerous concerts and scenic productions at the Salzburg Festival. She has been singing in BachWerkVokal since 2016 and was, among other things, a soloist in Handel’s “Messiah” and in a scenic production as Angelo in Handel’s “La Resurrezione”.

Marta Pacifici was born in Rome in 1999. She began her studies in Renaissance and Baroque Singing at the “S. Cecilia “in Rome, graduating in 2021 under the guidance of Sara Mingardo, of whom she is now a student in the Postgraduate Course in Baroque Singing at the Academy of S. Cecilia. She currently continues her master’s studies in the same Conservatory with Silvia Frigato. From 2007 to 2016 she was a member of the Choir of White Voices of the Accademia di S. Cecilia and of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma under the direction of J.M. Sciutto. In 2021 she sang in Rome for the ancient music event Care selve, aure gradite (IUC, Orto Botanico) and in the concert Music in the Italian courts (S. Maria in Monserrato). In 2022 you participated with the “Concerto Regio” ensemble in the review of “S. Cecilia in via Giulia ”(Off / Off Theater). She has been selected for “Vicenza in Lirica” (June 17, 2022) in The Combat of Tancredi and Clorinda and Il ballo delle Ingrate by Claudio Monteverdi.

The bass singer Roland Faust was born in Salzburg in 1985, where he began gaining his first musical experiences at the age of six in
the Cathedral choir. After completing his singing studies at the Mozarteum Salzburg, he devoted himself to studying early music and historical performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He was and is a member of numerous ensembles, including the Balthasar Neumann Choir, the Ensemble Huelgas and the Ensemble Amsterdam Baroque. One of Roland Faust’s greatest interests is the music of the Renaissance.

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La Senna festeggiante

Prima parte
Sinfonia Allegro – Andante molto – Allegro molto
Coro (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù, la Senna): Della Senna in su le sponde Recitativo (l’Età dell’oro): Io, che raminga errante
Aria (l’Età dell’oro): Se qui pace talor
Recitativo (la Virtù): Anch’io raminga errando
Aria (la Virtù): In quest’onde
Recitativo (la Senna): Illustri amiche
Aria (la Senna): Qui nel profondo del cupo fondo Recitativo (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù): Sì, sì, già che tu brami Duetto (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù): Godrem fra noi la pace Recitativo (la Senna, la Virtù, l’Età dell’oro): Tutto muor, tutto manca Aria (la Virtù): Vaga perla, benché sia dell’aurora bianca figlia Recitativo (l’Età dell’ro): Tal di me parlo ancora
Aria (l’Età dell’oro): Al mio seno
Recitativo (la Virtù, l’Età dell’oro): Della ferrea stagion Duetto (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù): Qui per darci amabil pace / Per goder l’antica pace
Recitativo (la Senna): Ma rimirate, amiche
Aria (la Senna): L’alta lor gloria immortale
Recitativo (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù, la Senna): O, di qual melodia Coro (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù, la Senna): Di queste selve venite o Numi

Seconda parte
Ouverture Adagio – Presto – Allegro molto
Recitativo (la Senna): Ma già ch’unito in schiera Aria (la Senna): Pietà, dolcezza, fanno il suo volto Recitativo (l’Età dell’oro, la virtù): Non si ritardi
Aria (la Virtù): Stelle, con vostra pace Recitativo (la Senna, l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù): Vedrete in quest’eroe
Duetto (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù): Io qui provo un sì caro diletto / Qui nel seno ho sì tenero affetto Recitativo (l’Età dell’oro): Quanto felici siete
Aria (l’Età dell’oro): Giace languente Recitativo (la Virtù): Quanto felici siete
Aria (la Virtù): Così sol nell’aurora
Recitativo (la Senna, la Virtù, l’Età dell’oro): Ma giunti eccone innante
Aria (l’Età dell’oro): Non fu mai più vista in soglio Recitativo (l’Età dell’oro): Per tributarti ancella
Coro (l’Età dell’oro, la Virtù, la Senna): Il destino, la sorte, il fato

Download the original program in PDF (in Italian and English)