Stile italiano

Works for theorbo and baroque guitar in the Italian fashion

Adam Cockerham, theorbo and baroque guitar

Sunday, January 12, 2025 – 4:00 p.m

Church of the Advent

Cape May, New Jersey

The program I have put together for Classical Cape May will explore the domination of Italian taste in European music of the 17th century. Beginning in the 16th century through books like Castiglione’s Il cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier, 1528) and visual artists of the Mannerist school, the Italian attitude known as sprezzatura spread throughout Europe. Loosely translated, sprezzatura refers to a kind of nonchalance, grace, coolness, or ease, especially while accomplishing something difficult with the body such as awkward poses, holding things in unnatural ways, or playing a musical instrument with virtuosity. This idea of sprezzatura, along with the newly invented musical styles developed in Italy around 1600 (birth of opera!), cements Italian music as the pinnacle of style and taste.

Portrait of a Young Man, Bronzino

I’ll be exhibiting this trend through works written for the theorbo and baroque guitar by Italian composers, composers who studied in Italy, or Italian-style pieces and composers that were exported to other parts of Europe. The theorbo is a newly invented instrument in Italy around the turn of the 17th century. Essentially a long-necked lute with an extended bass range, the instrument was devised to accompany vocalists and instrumentalists in a new style called monody which was meant to recreate the emotive powers of ancient Greek theater. Two sets of strings divide the instrument into a lute (or guitar-type instrument) on top combined with a harp in the lower range.

Allegory of Music, Laurent de la Hyre

The baroque guitar, or chitarra spagnola (Spanish guitar) as it was known at the time, is very similar to our modern equivalent. The major differences are the size (slightly smaller in both body size and string length) and number of strings (5 courses instead of the modern 6 strings). The term “courses” refers to the “double stringing” of the instrument, where each course is a set of two strings, giving the instrument a unique resonance and timbre.

Baroque Guitar by José Massague

This program will exemplify the dissemination of Italian musical style though these two instruments and show how pervasive Italian taste was throughout Europe in the 17th century.

-Adam Cockerham

(All photos from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website)