On the occasion of our concert in Antwerp, as part of the Laus Polyphoniae festival, we had the privilege of being followed by Paolo Scarnecchia, an Italian journalist eager for information about our project around Pomponio Nenna. He attended the rehearsal on the day of the concert, then the concert itself. Here is his testimony (which lets you taste the joyful atmosphere reigning within Comet Musicke!):
Find the page of the online media here, and here is its English translation:
“During the early music festival Laus Polyphoniae in Antwerp, the ensemble Comet Musicke presented a concert devoted to the madrigals of Pomponio Nenna, one of those noble music amateurs living in the second half of the 16th century who, throughout his life, moved in the orbit of the Neapolitan court of Prince Carlo Gesualdo.
The music of Nenna chosen by the French ensemble comes from the First Book of Madrigals for Five Voices printed in Venice in 1582, through which the musician thanks the Duke of Andria, Fabrizio Carafa, for having entrusted him with the government of the little town located some fifty kilometres north of Bari. Ironic twist of fate: this same Duke would be murdered by Gesualdo himself in 1590 because he was the lover of his wife… but Nenna would nevertheless join the Prince of Venosa in Naples a few years later, sharing the same poetic and musical tastes.
During this concert by the ensemble Comet Musicke, madrigals by Nenna were played and sung with varied instruments, complemented by a madrigal by Gesualdo and by a few compositions by the organists Trabaci and De Macque arranged for a consort of vielles and viols, as the ensemble’s artistic director Francisco Mañalich tells us.
All the musical examples in this podcast as well as the interview were recorded during the pre-concert rehearsal on 24 August 2026 at the San Carlo Borromeo church in Antwerp.