Continuing Ensemble Locatelli’s Season 2025: Lodovico Ferronati is one of those so-called minor figures who enriched the musical landscape of the 18th century, but without their fame spreading after their death.
One would be making a grave mistake to consider this oblivion just, because it was precisely these minor composers who created and maintained the cultural undergrowth that populated cities all over Europe and characterized the artistic life of their local area in an important way.
Lodovico Ferronati, from Padua by birth but Bergamo by adoption, would tie his name to the city of Orobica, serving within the prestigious Musical Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore for more than 60 years, first as violinist and later as Maestro di Cappella. One would expect that such a long militancy would guarantee a conspicuous finding of his compositions, but unfortunately this is not the case: most of his sacred composition has been lost while a collection of sonatas for violin and basso continuo published in 1710 in Venice and a series of violin concertos preserved in Dresden and Vienna in important libraries have come down to the present day, testifying to how the quality of his compositions was held in esteem and allowed his music to extend beyond domestic boundaries.
The figure of Ferronati was that of a person with considerable cultural depth and held in esteem for both his musical abilities and his passion for art. Combining his long-lived activity within the Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the collection of paintings that accompanied him throughout his life, it is easy to imagine the influence that Ferronati may have had on Bergamo’s cultural landscape during the 18th century.
The subject of a dissertation at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and a subsequent in-depth study, the Ferronati project led by Thomas Chigioni finds fulfillment in the recording and publication of his most successful vocal and instrumental pages.
Program:
– Lodovico Ferronati (1680 -1767): Concerto del Sig. Lodovico Ferronati col violino 2ndo obbligato CFC 1:C1 (Vienna)
– L. Ferronati: Concerto à quattro del signor Lodovico Ferronati CFC 1:F1 (Vienna)
– L. Ferronati: Mottetto “Crudelis herodes” per contralto (or. Soprano) e orchestra CFC 3:1 (Bergamo)
– L. Ferronati: Concerto à quattro CFC 1:D1 (Vienna)
– L. Ferronati: Concerto (à quattro) del signor Lodovico Ferronati CFC 1:B1 (Vienna)
– L. Ferronati: Inno di S. Antonio “Engratulemur hodie” for contralto and orchestra CFC 3:1 (Bergamo)
– L. Ferronati: Concerto con v.no conc: vv.ni, v.la and Basso CFC 1:D2 (Dresden)
Jérémie Chigioni: violin
Ensemble Locatelli
Thomas Chigioni: harpsichord, organ, conducting
Photo credits: LAIO Studio, Rocco Fidanza