O Notte, O Cielo, O Mar Small Ensemble - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1654863

To create this quintet, I used Maddalena Casulana's madrigal, O notte O cielo O mar, as a compositional starting point. Maddalena Casulana was an Italian composer, lutenist, and singer. She is most known for her madrigals and was a pioneer in the music publishing world and, in doing so, made it possible for subsequent women to publish their music. She was the first woman to publish a book of madrigals. Her first book of madrigals, published in Venice, 1568, Primo libro de madrigali a quattro voci, was dedicated to Isabella de’ Medici Orsini, who was a noted patron and musical amateur. In 1570, she published a second book of madrigals, Secondo libro de’ madrigali a quattro voci, which she dedicated to Antonio Londonio, a Milanese official and notable patron of music whose wife, Isabella, was a well-known singer.



In this quintet, I tell the story of a sunset and sunrise over an ocean landscape. The work is divided into five movements: The Sun Sets, The Nighttime, A Wondrous Night Sky, The Mighty Sea, and A Luminous Sunrise. I combine original material with passages inspired by the original madrigal. The sun setting and rising is depicted using energetic figurations, which are contrapuntally developed throughout the work. The night is depicted by the violin in an elaborate solo, which uses double stopping to add to the ambiance. The music depicting the sea is more stately representing its might. Overall, I hope this work both inspires the listener by evoking images of the beauty of nature and brings added exposure to the music of the compositional pioneer Maddalena Casulana.