Musica Antica present a soundscape of Florence from the dying days of the primacy of Lorenzo the Magnificent, through the brutal rise and fall of the preacher Girolamo Savonarola, and into the restoration of the Medici at the start of the sixteenth century. Influenced by Director Oliver Doyle's doctoral research on music, lifestyle and ethics in fifteenth and early-sixteenth century Italy, this programme will be told through the eyes of a young Florentine Woman, Marietta Pugi, who was gifted a book of songs - all of which are beautiful, but many obscene - around the year 1500.

Contrasting the amorous - sometimes scandalous - nature of secular music of the period with the complete rejection of most forms of music by Savonarola (architect of the Bonfire of the Vanities), this programme combines jewels of fifteenth century polyphony, simple plainchant and laude with secular lute songs and carnival music preserved in Marietta's songbook. It is a pleasure to be joined by Emma-Lisa Roux, who will perform these in the manner in which Marietta might have: self accompanied on the lute. You can hear Emma-Lisa performing Sandrin's Puisque vivre below.

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As ever, a bar selling wine, soft drinks and Holy Trinity's famous home-infused gins will be open from 7pm.
 

This concert will finish at 9:20pm. Please note that this concert will take place on a Sunday evening, rather than our usual Saturday. This is to allow Emma-Lisa to join us, and to avoid several clashes with fellow concert series in London the night before.

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