La Follia

There are some versions of the famous melody La Follia that are linked to Baroque Rome. This short, eight-bar melody became a real hit of Baroque music, even though its origins are even older. Its name may come from an old Portuguese dance that was performed in costumes with loud drum accompaniment, earning it the name “the dance of the fools”. The tradition of this naming then reached Italy via Spain and gradually became linked with typical melodic and rhythmic practices. The concert will feature melodious, virtuosic and perhaps even slightly mad variations on the famous melody in various instrumentations by Italian and French masters.
 
The Neapolitan-born Andrea Falconieri, whose sixteen variations on the bass of La Follia will open the concert, was briefly active in Rome. Musicians from all over Europe came to Rome to see the keyboard virtuoso Bernardo Pasquini, who also left behind his own version of variations on La Follia, this time for solo harpsichord. Another Rome-based virtuoso, Arcangelo Corelli, was, on the other hand, strongly influenced by Paolo Benedetto Bellinzani, whose La Follia for flute and basso continuo will appear in the concert programme, too. La Follia also made its way to France, especially in a version with a melody first transcribed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, where it became famous as Folies d’Espagne. We have thus included in the concert a variation on this melody from the pen of Jean-Baptiste Guignon, a Turin native settled in France. The programme will also present La Follia by Antonio Vivaldi.