I've just recorded a new cd titled "Il Liuto di Caravaggio": Lute music in Rome at the time of Caravaggio. In the booklet of the cd I wrote some informations about this painting. It's possible to find a description of the cd here: www.diegocantalupi.it/caravaggio And in the next days it will be possible to buy it from here: www.tesorimusicali.it
Here are some lines from the booklet: «Among aristocracy musical talent was highly thought of and in this respect cardinal Del Monte had an outstanding role: Ferdinando de' Medici and the cardinal himself were passionate worshippers of music, and they were both in touch with the best composers and performers of that time. They shared this passion with cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, the Pope's nephew, and with cardinal Alessandro Montalto. Cardinal Del Monte was also an amateur guitar player and owned a collection of musical instruments, on show in his music room. Surely these were the instruments Caravaggio used as models for his Concert of youngsters. This picture, seen at a friend's home, might have persuaded Vincenzo Giustiniani - a rich and noble art connoisseur - to ask Caravaggio to paint one for him on a similar musical subject: Lute player, currently on show at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The painting had great success, for soon afterwards Caravaggio painted a similar Lute player for cardinal Del Monte, who had it up along with the Concert of youngsters in the music room in Palazzo Madama. In both paintings the lute had a prominent position, being considered the noblest and most refined of instruments. Even Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo's father and great theorist of this instrument, had described its ability to express a huge variety of affections and feelings. The great precision used by Caravaggio whilst painting the musical instruments and papers allows us to identify some of the passages that he copied into the two pictures owned by cardinal Del Monte. In Concert of youngsters, though the bad state of preservation makes it difficult to read the score, it has been possible to recognise a madrigal by Jacques Arcadelt (1505-1568): a Flemish composer who started working in Rome in 1539, first at the Cappella Giulia and then as a master at the Sistine Chapel. Another four of Arcadelt's madrigals are clearly painted in the portrait of a lute player, made for Vincenzo Giustiniani; while in Del Monte's version we can see two madrigals printed in the same First Book by Arcadelt, but written by two composers belonging to the same period: the Flemish Jaques de Berchem and the Florentine Francesco de Layolle. The latter was an organist and a composer and, among other things, Benvenuto Cellini's music teacher.» To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
