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Recording

From Rome to Vilnius

Canto Fiorito, directed by Rodrigo Calveyra
51:02
Brilliant Classics 97227

This attractive CD is based on sacred and secular music, which is featured in the Sapieha album of music associated with the Vasa Court in Vilnius. The composers were mainly Roman, but many had served at one time or another as Kapellmeister to Sigismund III in Poland and Vilnius. The list of composers includes the familiar and the unfamiliar: Annibale Stabile, Asprillio Pacelli, Giovanni Anerio, Marco Scacchi, Barthomiej Pekiel, Diomedes Cato, Tarquinio Merula and Francesco Rognoni. The repertoire ranges from large-scale sacred settings for voices and instruments to small sets of instrumental variations. The playing and singing of Canto Fiorito is of a very high standard, while the recording venue – appropriately the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius – provides a rich full acoustic to allow the music to bloom. The group’s director has reconstructed a missing bass part for Merula’s Benedicta tu allowing it to be recorded here for the first time. This varied programme reflects the cultural richness of the Baltic states at the end of the 16th century and during the first part of the 17th century. Based in Vilnius, this fine consort is symptomatic of the flourishing early music scene in Eastern Europe.

D. James Ross

 

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