Il Concerto Caccini

For their latest album—winner of the 2025 Early Music Prize at the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA)—, Scherzi Musicali celebrates Giulio Caccini with some of his finest works. A key figure at the crossroads of the Renaissance and Baroque eras and the founder of the famed Concerto Caccini, he spent a long time on the fringes of the repertoire. Fascinated by his music, Nicolas Achten recorded Euridice back in 2008. Now, he continues his mission to restore Caccini’s legacy with this new tribute.

What draws you to Caccini’s world?

Nicolas Achten: There’s no single answer to that! Like many singers, I first encountered his music through “Amarilli, mia bella”. I was just a child—around 11 years old—and the piece really struck me. Later, when I started reading music history dictionaries, I realised he had played a role in the birth of opera with Euridice. But everything I read dismissed it, saying it was of interest only to musicologists and certainly no match for Monteverdi’s Orfeo. That made me want to investigate further! I found the score for Euridice, then Le Nuove Musiche, including its famous preface—and that was it, I was hooked. I love the challenges in his music: the vocality, the ornamentation… I dived in about twenty years ago, and as you can see, I haven’t managed to climb back out! (laughs)

Why bring together music from all three Caccinis—father and daughters?

N. A.: For this album, I wanted to place everything in a historical context—not just musically, but also in terms of performance practice, both instrumental and vocal. The opening track, “Fuor dell’humido nido”, is said to be the first piece Caccini ever sang in public as an adult. We begin at the end of the Renaissance with a typical instrumental setup, and over the course of the two discs, we follow how he shaped his distinctive style through his two madrigal collections—a style his daughters would later champion. It’s a journey from Renaissance into full-fledged Baroque. I also wanted to paint a family portrait, which is why the album is called Il Concerto Caccini, paying tribute to the ensemble Giulio founded with his wife, daughters, and son. In the recording, each singer represents a family member: two sopranos for the daughters, a mezzo-soprano for his two successive wives, a tenor for the son, and a baritone for Caccini himself.

You use more than 30 different continuo instruments across the album. Why such variety?

N. A.: I wanted to highlight both the “Renaissance” and “Baroque” versions of as many instruments as possible, following a historical timeline. The first disc, for example, features the chitarrone, double harp, Italian lute guitar, and bass lute. By the second disc, we transition to the theorbo, triple harp, and later, larger, more resonant instruments. Of course, this is all theoretical—we don’t actually know whether Caccini ever played with what we now call “Baroque” instruments. He may well have stuck with older ones throughout his life…

Caccini accused singers of “tearing apart and spoiling” his madrigals with excessive, overly instrumental ornamentation. He left precise instructions on how his music should be sung. What guidance did you give your singers?

N. A.: In Caccini’s time, both singers and instrumentalists were expected to ornament freely. That was standard practice—music circulated in manuscript form, usually in a bare-bones state, and performers were expected to enrich it with expressive detail. What makes Caccini unique is that he actually left detailed guidance for performers—something incredibly rare in early music history. It’s invaluable, educational, inspiring… just brilliant! For the album, we tried to follow his principles as closely as possible. He advises placing ornaments on the stressed syllable of an important word while making sure they reflect the meaning of that word. His ornamentation is deeply poetic, highly virtuosic yet never showy—unlike the bravura style of opera seria, for example. Here, everything is about refinement and elegance. Caccini does say his advice is just a suggestion, and that performers are free to add more elaborate ornamentation if they wish. But even just executing what he wrote is already quite a challenge! (laughs)