The Piffari

Il Suono Della Città
Music of the Italian Piffari

The Piffari, the Italian civic bands, were an integral feature in the soundscape of renaissance towns and cities. Highly skilled and versatile multi-instrumentalists, the players were called upon to provide music for church, civic procession, noble entertainments and for dancing and feasting. This concert celebrates the variety of instrumental colour and style that the piffari routinely produced, focusing on the music of the various wind bands in Venice, and featuring the music of the Gabrielis, Priuli, Dalla Casa, Merulo, and others, whose music was heard in the streets, palazzi and churches during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Performed on cornetts, trombones, dulcians, shawms, organ, and recorders.