The Ensemble, conducted by Bardazzi, also plays 17th century music in many festivals in Italy and abroad, in particular rarely performed pieces by Marco da Gagliano, Frescobaldi, Carissimi, Buxtehude, Jeronimo de Carrion and François Couperin. Of particular interest from this point of view are the first modern performances by the Ensemble, in association with the musicologist Giuseppe Collisani, of the Vespro di Santa Cecilia by Francesco Maria Stiava, and the Sonatas for two violins and bass by Pietro Antonio Franchi, two important Tuscan Baroque composers.
The performances by the Ensemble most appreciated by audiences and critics, are a new version of Mozart’s Requiem, “Magnificat”, organised with the help of the European Union, “El cant de la Sibilla”, a programme of medieval Catalan music they presented at the Festival dei due Mondi in Spoleto, “Nigra sum sed Formosa” cantigas de Santa Maria, and “Quem queritis” a medieval liturgical drama based on Florentine codices.
Arvo Pärt’s music is of particular interest to the Ensemble San Felice, and they perform the programme “Magnificat”, based on “Sieben
Magnificat Antiphonen” and the “Berliner Messe”, integrated with parts of the Proprio in Gregorian Chant. In the last few years the group has continued its research into Gregorian chant from a philological and semiological point of view. “In-Canto”, the international meetings held annually in Florence in association with the Capitolo Metropolitano Fiorentino and Aiscgre (Associazione Internazionale Studi di Canto Gregoriano) are a result of this, and are usually frequented by the most important musicians in this field, such as Nino Albarosa, Johannes Berchmans Göschl and Daniel Saulnier. The Ensemble now performs Gregorian works with female voices, under the direction of Federico Bardazzi, their voice-training is carried out by the group’s soloist Barbara Zanichelli.
The Ensemble San Felice was directed by Alan Curtis in Jacopo Peri’s Euridice and by Marco Balderi in Giacomo Carissimi’s Oratorios, as well as other conductors such as Mark Shaull and Hans Dieter Uhlenbruck, who have also directed the group in numerous concerts in Italy and abroad.
Amongst the recordings by the Ensemble San Felice, directed by Federico Bardazzi, there are the Six German Motets by Johann Sebastian Bach, the first recording ever of the Messa sopra l’aria di Fiorenza by Girolamo Frescobaldi (Bongiovanni), the Cantigas de Santa Maria by Alfonso X “Nigra sum sed Formosa” (Bongiovanni), the medieval Florentine liturgical drama “Quen queritis?” (Tactus) they performed on numerous tours in Italy and abroad. Their concerts and CDs have been broadcast by Rai (Italian State Radio), the Swiss, German, Polish radio and television and by the BBC.
