The Ensemble Bonne Corde, led by cellist Diana Vinagre, has recorded for the first time a complete work by the Portuguese composer António de Pádua Puzzi, on a disc due to be released in September in Lisbon. “It is also the modern premiere of this piece,” Diana Vinagre told the Lusa news agency.
Founded in 2009 and featuring a flexible lineup, the ensemble recorded the album under the artistic direction of Diana Vinagre, who played a historical 1788 cello built in Lisbon by Joaquim José Galrão and lent by the National Conservatory. The recording also included Rebecca Rosen (cello), Thomas Wesolowski and Kamila Marcinkowska-Prasad (bassoon), Marta Vicente (double bass), Miguel Jalôto (organ) and a group of vocal soloists.
“This is the first time a complete work by Pádua Puzzi (c. 1762–1807) has been recorded,” the cellist explained, “after only small excerpts had previously been performed in concert.”
The album, entitled Messa a quattro voci, con Violoncelli, Fagotti, Basso, ed Organo (1793), is the result of research carried out by Diana Vinagre as part of her doctoral studies at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, on the cello in sacred music between 1750 and 1834. “Solo repertoire for the instrument in this period is very scarce,” she noted, “and this type of research had never been done before.”
According to the performer, this mass belongs to a specific sacred repertoire from Portugal, linked to the rule requiring writing for voices and basso continuo. “The composers of the Patriarchal had this rather ingenious idea of continuing to use the basso continuo instruments, expanding the ensemble,” creating solo lines for bassoons and cellos in an attempt to “imitate the texture of the classical orchestra.”
Diana Vinagre placed this practice “between the last two decades of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century,” and mentioned the influence of Neapolitan music, used mainly “in the most solemn moments of the liturgical calendar.”
The album’s launch concert will take place on 26 September at the Belém Cultural Centre, preceded by a lecture by musicologist Rui Vieira Nery. The recording follows Lamentationes Hebdomadae Sanctae by Joseph-Hector Fiocco and Concerti Grossi by António Pereira da Costa, also conducted by Diana Vinagre.