web analytics

Francesco Patavino – Dilla da l’Acqua in Italian and Ukrainian

Dilla da l’Acqua is a 16th c. song deploring the fate of a lover who has to overcome the tricks of an obnoxious guardian that protects his beloved. The guardian is not spared every imaginable epithet, including a “pig’s face”. I first heard it interpreted by the British chamber music orchestra, Orlando Consort.

The piece belongs to the 16th c. Italian composer Francesco Patavino (c. 1478-c.1556) from Santa Croce in Padua. He was a rather important figure in the realm of sacred music of the Italian Renaissance and introduced the principle of a “broken choir”, then widely used by the Venetian school of polyphonic composition. Dilla da l’acqua must be one of the seven “profane” pieces that Patavino composed in his lifetime. He died in Loreto (Ancona) around the year 1556.

error: Sorry, no copying !!