principally the organ, and working for some years in Venice, Landini 

returned to Florence to be the resident organist and composer in the

church of San Lorenzo, a post he held until his death.

As all educated persons in his day, Landini was well acquainted with

the works of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), and it was from this source

that he chose texts for many of his songs. Dante defined for his time the

idealism of courtly love, envisioned in the Divine Comedy in the role of

his beloved Beatrice, who meets him at the gates of Paradise and guides

him toward the love and knowledge of God. Beatrice’s physical beauty

is seen as the outward, visible sign of inner virtue. Preoccupation with

female beauty and virtue permeates not only the writings of Dante, but

also those of Petrarch and Boccaccio. It is not surprising to find that

beauty and chastity were the focus of songs about women as well as the

focus of their portraits throughout the Renaissance.

The artist who created the most sublime portraits of women in the

Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, was also a gifted musician. Historians 

writing about the ducal courts in Ferrara and Milan record that he was

invited to play in both venues on the lira, the Renaissance forerunner of

the viola. He devoted serious thought to the improvement of that

instrument and the invention of others, and built some of the prototypes 

himself. In his treatise on the philosophy and technique of painting, 

Leonardo accorded music the highest place, after painting, among the

arts.

The program selected for this concert by Anonymous 4 consists 

entirely of ballate, songs that follow the repetition scheme ABBAA. In

Landini’s hands, the ballata progressed from an unaccompanied call and

response dance tune to a sophisticated composition for two or three

voices with complex harmonies, a strong tonal center, and a regular

meter.

For the convenience ofconcert goers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Sixtieth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2394th Concert

ANONYMOUS 4

Presented in honor of the exhibition 

Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's “Ginevra de’ Benci"

and Renaissance Portraits of Women

Sunday Evening, 28 October 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
PROGRAM

(Performed without intermission)

The Second Circle

Love Songs of Francesco Landini (c. 1325-1397) 

Echo la primavera

Reading I: (Dante is captured by Love)

Angelica bilta 

Che chosa e quest’amor

Reading II: (Dante swoons at the sight of Beatrice) 

Nella partita

Non do la colp’a te

Quanto piu caro fay

Reading III: (The greeting denied)

Lasso! per mie fortuna 

Occhi dolenti mie

Muort’oramai

Reading IV: (The God of Love appears to Dante) 

Per allegre99a

Nella mia vita 

Abbonda di virtu

Non avra ma’ pieta

Reading V: (Dante reveals his purpose)

Cara mie donna 

Gram piant’ agli occhi

Echo la primavera

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that

all personal electronic devices are turned off.

Renowned for their astonishing vocal blend and virtuoso ensemble 

singing, the four women who comprise Anonymous 4 (Marsha 

Genesky, Susan Hellauer, Jacqueline Horner, and Johanna Maria Rose)

came together in 1986 to experiment with the sound of medieval chant

and polyphony as sung by higher voices. The ensemble takes its name

from the designation given by musicologists to an anonymous thirteenthcentury Englishman, who as a student in Paris wrote about the vocal

polyphony then being performed at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The

members of Anonymous 4 combine musical, literary, and historical 

scholarship with contemporary performance intuition as they create

innovative programs, interweaving music with poetry and narrative.

Active in promoting new as well as ancient music, the ensemble has

collaborated with England’s Chilingirian String Quartet to premiere a

new work by British composer John Taverner. An appearance at the

Boston Early Music Festival with the six-man ensemble, Lionheart, and

a live broadcast on New York’s public radio station, WNYC, included

new works by Steve Reich and Richard Einhom. Performances in such

prestigious venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kennedy

Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, and Vienna’s

Theaterverein have met with resounding success.

Anonymous 4’s recordings for Harmonia Mundi USA have garnered 

important awards and enjoyed robust sales. The newest example is 1000:

A Mass for the End of Time. Prior successes include The Lily and the

Lamb and Legends of St. Nicholas, named early music recordings of the

years 1996 and 1999, respectively, by Classic FM; On Yoolis Night,

which received France’s Diapason d’Or award; and An English

Ladymass, named 1992 classical disc of the year by CD Review.

Francesco Landini, also known as Magister Franciscus de Florentia, 

was bom in Florence in about 1325 and died there in 1397. He was the

son of the painter Jacopo del Casentino, who was an apprentice to Giotto

and a cofounder of the Florentine Guild of Painters. Jacopo no doubt had

high hopes for his son to succeed him as an artist, but an attack of

smallpox rendered Francesco blind at an early age, and he turned to

music as his field of study. After mastering several instruments,