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Composed by Antonio Archilei (1543-1612). From Intermedii (1589), La Pellegrina.

Emma Kirkby, soprano
Taverner Choir

The first intermedio began with an extended solo song sung by Vittoria Archilei, who was deployed on a cloud that emerged, very slowly, from the flyloft of the theater. Archilei personified Harmony of the Spheres (or more specifically, Dorian Harmony), but we know that few in the audience recognized the singer as such, either by her visual appearance or by the self-identifying pronouncement during the course of her song “Dalle più alte sfere”.

The intricate, ever-changing passagework was likely experienced in performance in terms of broad affective gestures that were delineated sectionally. Indeed, through such shifts, and because of increasingly demanding and spectacular passagework, the song has impressed modern commentators by exuding an overarching impression of gathering momentum. The florid passagework that characterizes what some have assumed to be the song’s final section—beginning with a second statement of the words “Qual voi”— is, to judge from recent recordings, the most technically demanding and aurally breathtaking of the piece.— Nina Treadwell, Music of the Gods: Solo Song and effetti meravigliosi in the Interludes for La pellegrina, 2007

Translation:

From the highest of the spheres,
gently escorted by celestial sirens,
I am Harmony, and I come to you, O mortals,
after beating my wings up to the heavens
to bring back their flame.
For never did the sun see such a noble couple as you,
the new Minerva and powerful Hercules.

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