The Arcadian Academy

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Our concert today is dedicated to the musical legacy of the Arcadian Academy, the storied Italian 18th century literary society founded in Rome in 1690 by a small group of literati who had been part of the circle of Queen Christina of Sweden. Queen Christina (1626-1689) was an outsize figure in Roman cultural life and a renowned patron of the arts. The Queen, averse to the social conventions and courtly expectations of her home country, abdicated her throne in 1654; thereafter, she left Sweden, converted to Catholicism, and settled in Rome, where she surrounded herself with artists and academics. In the decades following its founding, the Arcadian Academy grew vastly in membership and expanded to Italian cities outside of Rome; it survives to this day in Rome as the Accademia dell'Arcadia. 

Poetry was at the heart of the Arcadian enterprise. The Arcadian Academy's ethos emphasized a direct and elegant style of poetry tied to the memory of an idealized pastoral golden age, symbolized by the mythical Arcadia (named after a region of Greece). The Arcadians drew inspiration from poets of previous generations, from Virgil to Iacopo Sannazaro. Sannazaro's L'Arcadia (published 1504) recounts the story of Sincero who leaves the city for a period of contemplation in the countryside, only to learn upon his return that his lover has died. The risk of the "real world" intruding on paradise is always an undercurrent in the Arcadian vision. The most iconic image of Arcadia is Nicolas Poussin's 1637-8 painting "Et in Arcadia Ego" (I am also in Arcadia) where a group of shepherds and a female companion gather around a tomb; the "Ego" (I) here is the voice of death, present even in Arcadia. Beyond the memento mori aspect of the Academy's vision, creativity and playfulness played a key role in its proceedings: members, for instance, took on fanciful pseudo-Greco-Roman Arcadian names in the manner of ancient shepherds and shepherdesses. Composer Arcangelo Corelli became Arcomelo ("honeyed bow") Erimanteo. The modern-day Accademia dell'Arcadia lists a certain Armonide Terpsicoreo, no doubt a devotee of music and dance. 

Music was one of the primary means through which the Arcadians expressed their poetic ideals. Queen Christina was the patron of Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740) was a member of the Arcadian Academy and renowned patron of the arts. Ottoboni supported all of the composers you will hear tonight (with the exception of Avison), underwriting and hosting performances, composing libretti, and promoting their work. 

Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747) was celebrated as an opera composer and cello virtuoso. In demand all over Europe, he made his mark in important cultural centers including Rome, Vienna, and London. Bononcini moved to Rome in 1691; by 1696 he was an initiated member of the Arcadian Academy, and formed part of its "chorus" (not literally a singing group, but a division of musicians in the Academy, inspired by the chorus of ancient Greek theater). Bononcini's Sinfonia Decima opens with an Adagio - Allegro sequence that reads like an open landscape. Zoom in and you encounter human figures. Zoom in even further and you hear their conversations. Zoom in yet further and you can even perceive their thoughts, suspended in the corners of a slowly-winding bass line. A fanfare-like Allegro breaks through the introversion and the scene is filled with buzzing life: the trumpets unleash steam-like figurations, like the waters of Hippocrene (the Ancient Greek fount of poetic inspiration on Mount Helicon, immortalized by François Couperin in his Apotheosis for the Arcadian composer Arcangelo Corelli). The streaming figure is taken on by the strings and the movement ends in full bloom. The Grave that follows features plaintive sighing and mysterious modulations. These nods to the macabre, unfamiliar, and unknown are the "Et in Arcadia Ego" element of the piece, a striking memento mori within an otherwise placid musical landscape. The Vivace is a rustic Jig-Tarantella, with interjections of more formal figurations. The juxtaposition of a folk dance with proper counterpoint in four-square rhythms brings to mind the Arcadians, with their characteristic combination of pastoral trappings and high culture. The Adagio that follows zooms out to a panoramic view of the musical scene, with polyphonic layering that suggests perspective and horizon. Finally, a sequence of alternating Largos and Allegros brings the piece to a close with fanfare and celebration.

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) was a key figure in the development of Neapolitan opera; he wrote hundreds of cantatas and numerous instrumental pieces including harpsichord solos, concerti grossi, and sinfonias. He also worked in Rome where he enjoyed the patronage of both Queen Christina and Cardinal Ottoboni. This year, the world celebrates Scarlatti's tricenentennal, 1725-2025. Scarlatti's Sinfonia was written for a serenata; the serenata was an outdoor, nighttime musical entertainment somewhere between a cantata and an opera. It featured recitatives, arias, and multiple characters, but was performed with the singers and musicians reading from their music. The Sinfonia's Largo is composed to resemble something like Renaissance counterpoint, the stile antico (old style). Its antiquated "accent" may be a nod to Ancient Greece, as it existed in the 17th century imagination. The Largo, however, quickly moves beyond the bounds of typical Renaissance music, incorporating piquant dissonances and settling, finally, back where it started via an indirect, enigmatic route.  The Presto that follows starts straightforwardly enough, with racing scales and a familiar four-bar descending ciaccona bass line. The opening musical statement, however, does not deliver on any promises of symmetricality: it quickly unfolds into an odd 11-bar phrase. The Presto's dazzle, while enhanced by its rapidity, comes primarily from its unpredictability. The Sinfonia contuinues with a Minuet, seemingly more regular than the previous two movements, but with some whimsical turns of phrase. It closes with an understated, secret final movement, like a little epigram, at only five measures in length.  

Alessandro's son Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) was a harpsichord virtuoso and composer. He produced 555 harpsichord sonatas, many of which bear the influence of Iberian peninsula, where he worked for the bulk of his career. In Rome (1709) Cardinal Ottoboni arranged a musical duel of sorts between Domenico and George Frederick Handel, his exact contemporary. Handel "won" at organ, and the two virtuosi tied at harpsichord. It was, by all accounts, a friendly contest. Avison's Concerto is part of a set of Concerti Grossi (large concertos, typically with small choirs of solo instruments rather than one soloist) based on Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas. Transcription and arrangement were common in the baroque era, allowing musicians to deliver the same piece of music with varied forces, and affording composers the chance to act as interpreters and commentators of other composers' music (or even reinterpret and recast their own music). Avison's take on Scarlatti opens with a delicate Adagio, with exquisite, lacelike violin figurations. The Allegro  takes an opening passage that was originally composed by Scarlatti to imitate violin by using alternating hands at the harpsichord, and scores it for a single violin line, coming, perhaps, closer to Scarlatti's vision than would have been possible with harpsichord alone. The Allegro's martial stylings bring to mind a fencing match or bullfight; its harmony occasionally takes on an Iberian flavor, with dark, phrygian sounds, like those heard in flamenco guitar. The excitement of the Allegro is countered by the Amoroso, where harmonies expressing the glow of love combine with those of uncertainty and anticipation. The closing Allegro is dance-like, with a touch of the acrobatic: its drone-like passages constitute something of a musical tightrope, illustrated in vivid detail, down to the tension of the rope, and the wavering of the tightrope walker. 

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) is represented tonight by two double concerti, one for two flutes, and another for two cellos. Vivaldi was active in Rome 

in the early 1720s and Cardinal Ottoboni kept Vivaldi's music in his personal library. The two double concerti you will hear are strongly influenced by their keys: the double flute concerto is composed in the airy, neutral key of C major, while the double cello inhabits a tenebrous, fraught G minor. The flute concerto

features quirky phrase lengths in its ritornelli, playful trills, bounding figurations, and musical adventures in adjacent keys. Its overall mood is light, thoughtful, and humorous at times. In contrast, the cello concerto is fiery, dramatic, and full of gravity. The opening Allegro starts, arrestingly, in media res with the cello's charged dactylic motto, eschewing the usual formality of an orchestral introduction. After a poignant, nocturne-like Largo, the final Allegro rips through brutal syncopations, unleashes flurries of repeated notes in the cellos (echoed by the orchestra), and smolders to the end. 

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) was the most influential violinist of his day; he achieved widespread renown for his compositions and enjoyed the close 

friendship and patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni. He moved into the cardinal's palace in 1690, bringing him into close contact with the Arcadian Academy. In 1706, Corelli, his duo partner, the virtuoso harpsichordist Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710), and Alessandro Scarlatti became Arcadians. Corelli's Concerto Grosso No. 3 opens with an operatic overture, with moments of tenderness from the solo violins. The Allegro is a lively fugue with poised hemiolas (slow counts of three within a quicker triple-meter pulse); a suspenseful drone brings the movement to a climax. Following the excitement, Corelli offers some respite: the Grave is like a musical dream sequence, an alternate reality of slow-motion underwater movement, viewed at the distance of a couple hundred years ... Upon waking, the Vivace emerges, something of a Gavotte, with spicy suspensions and the irrepressible energy of a walking bassline. The Concerto concludes with an Allegro in the form of a Giga (jig), a vibrant closing dance that contrasts beautifully with the piece's weighty opening. 

George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) spent time in Rome between 1707-1710. A highlight of his time there was a collaboration with Corelli: the famed violinist served as concertmaster for the premiere of Handel's oratorio La resurrezione. Handel's Concerto Grosso in F takes Corelli's own works in the genre as a model. The lush suspensions and signature Corellian progressions are never far from the surface in Handel's work. The Andante Larghetto opens nobly with a gracious collective gesture; the strings answer with delicately-wrought figurations that prove contagious as the whole orchestra takes them on. The next movement, an electric minor-key Allegro is marked by its distinctive fluttering anapest rhythms and its buildup of heat and fieriness. Gentle breeze-like rhythms in the Largo that follows serve as a release. To conclude, a tumbling Allegro ma non troppo is inflected by passages of suaveness from the concertino (solo) strings.

Program notes by Benjamin Katz