The Paradise Tree

 

Le Jardin Secret present sacred and secular Italian music for the soul and the contrasting dimensions of the symbol of the tree of life: hope, suffering, joy, temptation and death

Description

The great image from the book of Revelation of the tree of life, laden with fruit and healing the wounds and sorrows of the warring nations with the balm of its leaves is a profound, poetic image of love and restoration. The beauty of the image is enriched when one begins to explore the connotations of the tree as symbol: the centre of utopian Eden which causes the fall of man and the paradox of the cross, there the tree is at once a symbol of torture and death but also the primary source of life and redemption. This programme of sacred and secular Italian music for the soul explores these contrasting dimensions of the symbol of the tree, the balm of life, the joy of creation and the pain of suffering and death. Le Jardin Secret are Elizabeth Dobbin (soprano), Jadran Duncumb (theorbo), Sarah Ridy (baroque harp), Romina Lischka (viola da gamba).

Programme
Tarquinio Merula (1595-1665)
‘Hor che tempo di dormire’

Giovanni Felice Sances (1600-1679)
‘Stabat Mater dolorosa’ (Pianto della Madonna)

Francesca Caccini (1587-1641)
‘Ecco ch’io verso il sangue’

Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)
‘Lamento di Maria Stuarda’

Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (1580-1651)
‘Piaga d’amor’

Benedetto Ferrari (1603-1681)
‘Queste pungente spine’

Bernardo Storace (1664)
Variations on ‘La Monica’ for harp and theorbo

Giovanni Picchi (1575-1643)
‘Passa ‘e Mezzo’ for harp and theorbo