Andrea Boscelli- L'Atesta

The underlying structure of this piece is very simple, but out of the limited foundation is built a very beautiful and passionate with a melody that seems to go all over the place. The accompaniment of the piece is kept very repetitious, sounding out one note at a time on the keyboard to spell at the chord (arpeggios) and with a few strings echoeing. The keyboard is continuous playing a similar sequence throughout, allowing Boscelli to take many pauses in the singing and making the phrasing very clear. Most of these phrases are symmetric in length. A melodic motive in the voice part repeats often, and the contour and material is the same throughout. While this sounds like possible boredom, Boscelli is able to create an intense emotional effect and great beauty. The piece maximizes Boscelli’s great voice by frequent registry and dynamic changes to give the piece interest. For example, Boscelli will sing a melodic motive softly and on low notes, and then he’ll frepeat it 3 octaves above very loudly, and there is a completely different effect. Boscelli’s voice is unmasked, as it should be. Mask