Tag: Renaissance

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Festival-conference

The Pride of Lammermuir

Modern floral

D James Ross at a flourishing 2017 Lammermuir Festival

The Orlando Consort on Pilgrimage
My first concert at the Lammermuir Festival, in lovely East Lothian east of Edinburgh, was the first of two concerts on the theme of the Pilgrim’s Way, a performance by the Orlando Consort of music by Dufay and his contemporaries. The main work featured was appropriately Dufay’s setting of the Ordinary and part of the Propers for the Mass for St James. St James the Greater, the son of Zebedee, was buried in Compostela, and his cathedral there became an important focus for pilgrimage.

Looking back over the whole concert with its motets and chansons by Dufay and songs by Binchois (his close friend and colleague), Ockeghem, Compère and Jean Tapissier it was clear that the Mass was not part of the group’s standard repertoire, and there was unfortunately some distinctly dodgy intonation and a general lack of focus. This was a great pity as the Mass was probably the finest music in the programme – fortunately things settled down a lot in the second half. Particularly impressive were the virtuosic exchanges between alto Matthew Venner and tenor Mark Dobell. As many of the audience remarked, there was something intensely moving about the synchronicity of music and venue – the magnificent Parish Church of St Mary in Whitekirk in which we heard it dates from the same early decades of the 15th century. This beautiful building has an ideal acoustic for this music, and was packed for the occasion. Warm and protracted applause elicited an encore from a slightly later era, Antoine Brumel’s beautiful setting of Sicut lilium inter spinas. Tenor Angus Smith managed the most elegant segue into CD sales I have ever heard by pointing out that Medieval pilgrims liked to go home from pilgrimage with souvenirs, and that we could do the same! Neat.

A Flavour of Vienna with the Quatuor Mosaïques
A real feather in the cap for the Lammermuir Festival is a residency by one of the finest period ensembles in the world, the Quatuor Mosaïques, and their inaugural concert in the lovely neo-Romanesque St Baldred’s Church, North Berwick saw them presenting their core repertoire, quartets by Haydn and Mozart. Opening with the second of Haydn’s opus 20 quartets, they showed the master of the genre already confidently deploying the four instruments with flair and confidence, deftly ending his piece with an unexpected and impressive fugue. Sitting right in front of the performers, I felt involved in the group’s unique chemistry, and was very aware of the purity and immediacy of the vibrato-free timbre of their gut strings and period bowing – violinists Erich Höbarth and Andrea Bischof’s long sustained high notes seemed simply to hang inert in the air before re-engaging with the texture.

Haydn’s sixth opus 33 Quartet finds the composer already firmly established as the master of the genre, expressing himself characteristically and yet definitively through this new medium. The Quatuor demonstrated the supreme coordination and technical assurance that they have developed in thirty years of playing together, while their authentic set-up seemed to give us a direct line to eighteenth-century Vienna.

Listening to Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet K465 with which the Quatuor Mosaïques concluded this revelatory concert, it is hard to imagine the great difficulty the composer professed to have with the genre. The writing is so assured, the harmonies so daring, the textures so innovative that it seems to the innocent listener that Mozart must have enjoyed the same facility as he did in the other musical forms he attempted. The key to this enigma lies perhaps in the group’s encore, given in response to rapturous applause, which was an exquisite little Adagio rejected by Mozart from one of his early quartets – even the contents of the hyper-critical Mozart’s wastepaper basket are worthy of attention. At any rate the beguiling transparency of the Quatuor’s interpretation of the ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, and the unadorned almost raw immediacy of their sound brought us afresh to this wonderfully inventive music. Watching the group play live, one is made very aware of the emotional narrative in which they are all completely invested, one moment bubbling with hilarity, the next wrought with threat or even tragedy. A lifetime playing this music on the instruments of the time has given them an unparalleled perspective on this repertoire, which is why I have entrusted them with the job of being my guide through the Beethoven ‘Late’ Quartets – a body of six ‘problem’ works which I have never got the measure of. Excitingly, the group have just committed them all to disc over the last two years and they were available ‘pre-release’ at the concert. Naturally I invested, in anticipation of more revelations.

The venue for the Quatuor Mosaïques’ second concert was the remarkable arts and crafts style Chalmers Memorial Church in Port Seaton, a maritime church in the style of Pugin with various sea creatures stencilled on every available surface. The Quatuor started where they left off last time in the history of the quartet, opening with the effusive first Quartet of Mozart’s set dedicated to Haydn. Again assurance and invention shine through from first to last, and the Viennese ensemble seemed to have a natural affinity with Mozart at his most imaginative and positive.

Next came a genuine novelty and a nod in the direction of ‘Lammermoor’ with Gaetano Donizetti’s 17th String Quartet – who knew that the operatic composer had composed any string quartets, let alone eighteen?! This is music from Donizetti’s youth, and it turned out to be tuneful if rather formulaic, with occasional prescient forays into a more convincing operatic world, and some genuinely original passages in the Larghetto. Sadly, appearing in such august company, the work came across as rather passé  for the 1820s, and even a little banal.

Back to the realm of genius, and the Fifth of Haydn’s opus 76 Quartets. These are works notable for their virtuosic and occasionally vertiginous first violin line, but this held few terrors for Erich Höbarth, whose deft bowing made literally light work of the challenges. This Fifth Quartet is the one whose Largo so captured the imagination of audiences that for a while it was known as the ‘Largo Quartet’, and it is easy to see why this lyrical movement, played with enormous intensity by the ensemble, appealed to such an extent. More so than hearing the group’s recording of the piece, I was made aware of some very odd almost haunting passages, such as the trio of the Minuetto. It would be a real mistake to regard Haydn as in any sense conventional, and the familiarity of the Quatuor Mosaïques with his music allows them to explore every unsuspected nuance. This was another stunning and revelatory master-class in quartet playing, rounded off, after tumultuous applause from another capacity audience, by a soothing Haydn encore. It was salutary to see that even these gods of the string quartet world are human, as they initially started out on two different encores simultaneously – I hope that this rare moment of discord can be edited out before the concert is broadcast on Radio 3 towards the end of November!

The Quatuor Mosaïques visited the charming Aberlady Parish church for their third and final concert for the Lammermuir Festival, ending as they began with Mozart and Haydn. They opened with the delightfully fresh opus 156 by the 16-year-old Mozart – in fact he had first tried his hand at quartet writing two years earlier at the age of fourteen! The set of six quartets written in 1772 and 1773, were composed in blithe innocence of the work of Haydn, and exude an uninhibited youthful confidence. Not without sophistication, they are nevertheless a long way from the later masterpieces, achieved according to their composer through much travail. The Quatuor and the audience delighted in the lightness of touch and effortless whimsy of the three-movement K156.

When the ensemble segued into Haydn’s opus 20 no 5 Quartet, we instantly felt the hand of experience. Written in the same year as the Mozart, the opus 20 Quartets were the product of a forty-year-old mind, and ‘Papa Haydn’, barely into middle age, was still subject to Sturm und Drang  and youthful inventiveness, while the fugal tour de force  finale of the Fifth Quartet seems brilliantly to be knitting the Baroque and Classical eras together. The Quatuor’s interpretation of this work was intensely powerful, bringing out its remarkable structural devices as well as its sheer élan.

The group concluded their residency by welcoming violist Alfonso Leal del Ojo on board for a performance of Mozart’s K515 String Quintet, which proved to be the highlight of the whole series. Dating from Mozart’s last years, the quintets are a vehicle for the composer’s most profound ideas, and most striking for me was the highly inventive way he used the additional instrument, permitting double imitation between the two violins and the two violas, also creating a faux mirror image of this between the two violas and the second viola and cello. Sometimes it was only the evidence of the eyes that confirmed that there were ‘only’ five instruments playing! It is no mean feat to slot into a quartet already playing at the top of their game, but Mr del Ojo was instantly part of the Mosaïques’ distinctive sound and dynamic. The thunderous applause which greeted this musical and performance tour de force  reflected appreciation for the whole remarkable series of concerts. Bravi!

My appetite for the final Quatuor Mosaiques’ performance had been whetted by a memorable recital earlier in the day by cellist Alban Gerhardt in the most exquisite venue so far, the 14th-century Great Hall of Lennoxlove Castle. Against the backdrop of the spectacularly barrel-vaulted and acoustically stunning space, Gerhardt performed the first and last of Bach’s Cello Suites, overcoming finger cramps to deliver magisterial accounts on his full-voiced modern set-up cello. The most spectacular part of the recital for me, and I suspect for the rest of the audience, was his account of the Kodaly Sonata. In this wild music, snatched raw from the Hungarian Puszta and sounding untamed and belligerent, Gerhardt’s cello roared, danced, whispered and rhapsodised by turns. Intensified by the medieval stonework, the sound was magnificent and almost overwhelming. Being able to wander round iconic paintings of Mary, Queen of Scots, James VI, George Buchanan and other luminaries of Scottish history was just a special bonus.

Youth to the fore in minimal Mozart and contemporary polyphony
Although Mozart was only 18 when he composed his opera buffa La finta Giardiniera  he was already an experienced operatic composer, and in the Lammermuir Festival performance at Brunton Venue 2 by Ryedale Festival Opera and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Experience Ensemble there was a similar synthesis of youth and expertise. The youth of the singers brought an authenticity to the fraught web of relationships in the plot, while their young voices along with the period instruments of the Ensemble lent the project the ultimate seal of authenticity. If inexperience led one or two of the singers occasionally to fight the rather dead acoustic, on the whole the voices were very pleasing both in solo, duet and ensemble contexts. It was in these latter sections, involving occasionally all seven voices in animated exchanges, that we could hear the seeds of the great operatic ensemble writing to come.

The performers had chosen to sing in English, using a new translation by John Warrack, which ranged between deft and funny modern-speak to frankly grammatically more clunking moments, which due to the libretto’s repetition kept coming back to haunt us. Notwithstanding the added accessibility, I think there is an undeniable case for leaving lighter works such as this robed in the beauty and dignified obscurity of Italian! It would be invidious to single out individual singers for praise, as the young cast demonstrated a consistently high level of vocal accomplishment and dramatic skills, genuinely involving the audience in what is a pretty preposterous story. Very simple staging, acted out in front of the minimal orchestral forces, added to the sense of spontaneity and made for a most enjoyable evening.

Youth was also very much to the fore as I resumed pilgrimage with a concert by Tenebrae in the magnificent ‘Lamp of Lothian’, the 14th-century Collegiate Church of St Mary’s in Haddington. The average age of the performers, already strikingly low, was further reduced by the participation of the National Youth Choir of Scotland Chamber Choir in a work specially commissioned this year by Tenebrae from Owain Park specifically to involve a variety of young vocal ensembles. Melded from a host of related texts and drawing on a wide range of musical styles, Park’s Footsteps  had passages of luminous beauty, which stuck in the mind. Both vocal groups blended beautifully, a remarkable testimony to the Scottish choir’s founder and guru, Christopher Bell, who rightfully took his share of the applause.

The second part of the concert consisted of the virtuosic vocal masterpiece Path of Miracles  by Joby Talbot celebrating the pilgrimage to Santiago in texts from the Mediaeval “Codex Calixtus” and the Latin liturgy as well as text by the librettist Robert Dickson. Tenebrae under their director Nigel Short have quite simply set new standards for the performance of unaccompanied choral polyphony, and their exquisitely precise and clear sound, maintained flawlessly for an hour, was instrumental in its accuracy and reliability and laser-like in its intensity. Talbot’s piece, bewilderingly eclectic in its musical influences, places huge demands on singers, each of whom is a soloist but also part of a larger blended whole, and this remarkable virtuoso ensemble rose magnificently to the challenge. Unfortunately, in the final sections of the work a whistling hearing aid in the audience clearly disturbed the singers and one or two of the audience, including me. As audiences age, this is a growing problem, and a very thorny one to address – naturally hearing aid users have the right fully to hear the music, but equally so do performers and other audience members.

As the singers moved portentously round the building, as if enacting some profound liturgical drama, it struck me that pieces like this, interweaving ancient liturgies, pilgrims’ song and world music, are creating new pseudo liturgies for our post-religious times – spiritual experiences facilitated without the inconvenience of faith or even belief. It is ironic that as church attendance and religious faith generally have declined, the public appetite for abstract spiritual experiences has rocketed, a fact underlined by the thunderous response to Tenebrae’s masterly performance.

Dunedin Consort provides a grand finale
The finale to the 2017 Lammermuir Festival was grand in every sense, being an impressive performance of Handel’s youthful oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, composed in 1707 during the 21-year-old’s Italian visit. Notwithstanding the rather conservative text in which stylised characters vie with one another, this early oratorio is not all it seems. In fact, the young Handel is warming up for his stellar career as an operatic composer, while the seemingly emblematic figures in fact interact like operatic characters. Already a gifted and experienced composer, Handel audibly delights in the forces at his disposal and is never musically more creative and imaginative than he is here. The sheer confidence of some of the musical ideas is stunning, while from the arch-recycler we also hear the roots of much later repertoire, including an almost perfectly formed prototype of the iconic ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’, given a ravishing performance by Emile Renard as Piacere, originally a role for male soprano. Renard also stunned us all with her virtuosic aria ‘Come nembo’, while fellow soprano, the crystal-toned Joanne Lunn, gave an exquisite account of the part of Bellezza. Nicholas Mulroy and Hilary Summers seemed perhaps less ideally vocally cast as Tempo  and Disinganno, but gave heartfelt accounts of their generally darker music.

Equally impressive was the playing of the Dunedin Consort’s Baroque orchestra, from which emerged superb solo contributions by principal oboist Alexandra Bellamy, leader Cecilia Bernardini, organist Stephen Farr and principal cellist Alison McGillivray. Under the direction of John Butt, both the vocal and instrumental forces exuded Baroque expression, while wonderfully authentic and thrilling ornamentation provided the icing on the cake. This gala evening playing to a packed St Mary’s Collegiate Church Haddington picked up on several of the themes of this year’s Lammermuir Festival, not least the theme of youth which had run like a thread through the programme. Although it is so much more than this, the Lammermuir Festival has become one of the most important platforms for early music in Scotland or for that matter the UK. After a week of superlative international performances in lovely and atmospheric settings I can see why it has attracted such accolades and continues to enjoy such success. And perhaps the ultimate accolade – at the first concert I attended, the Orlando Consort’s Pilgrim’s Way, I spoke to a member of the audience about why she had come. She knew nothing of 15th-century polyphony, but said she ‘trusted the Festival’ and had been utterly beguiled by the synergy of music and venue. Surely this is what festivals should ultimately be all about!

Sincere and profound apologies to James, the festival and the artists for the long overdue uploading of this review; somehow it was filed and forgotten about.

Categories
Sheet music

Daniele Torelli and Giulia Gabrielli: Madrigali in Seminario

Dark green flowers

Musiche vocali profane da una miscellanea storica a Bressanone
Series “Biblioteca Musicale” no. 28
pp. xlviii+141 (LIM, 2017)
ISBN 9788870968156 €30

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a selection from five Venetian prints of mid-16th century madrigals (from 1550 to 1572, and for two to five voices) that are bound together with a greater number of miscellaneous part-books of sacred music of the same period, forming a two-volume collection found in the library of the “Seminary” (short for the Studio Teologico Accademico di Bressanone). The compilation probably dates from the end of the 17th century or later, and their shelf marks are: I-BREs, XXI.L.10  and I-BREs, XXI.L.11.

This is the first volume of a project begun in 2008 at the University of Bolzano which aims to publish music from the archives of various churches of Bressanone, which is in the German-speaking province of Bolzano. The project includes polyphonic music, among which this surprising number of secular works has turned up. They were originally donated to the library by bishops and priests, and constitute a very small part of the library’s holdings of 11th- to 20th- century manuscripts and prints. That said, this selection of 41 pieces, published in score here, and chosen according to various criteria (e.g. variety, quality, rarity, vocal ranges, versions of the literary material), represents a small part of the secular music found in the two compilations, themselves mainly containing sacred polyphony.

Giulia Gabrielli supplies this background, comparing the Seminary’s library with all the other archives in the province. Only hypotheses can be made to explain why wealthy clerics donated so much secular polyphony in the 16th century, when printed, or in the following century.

The books found in the two compilations (and the number of pieces chosen from each) are: Il Capriccio con la Musica sopra le Stanze del Furioso, 1561 by Jachet de Berchem (8); Il Primo Libro de Madrigali a due voci, dove si contengono le Vergine  [Petrarch], 1572 by Giovanni Paien (10); Le Napollitane, et alcuni Madrigali a quatro voci  [sic], 1550 by Baldassarre Donato (7); Opera Nona di Musica Intitolata Armonia Celeste, libro quarto a cinque voci, 1558 by Vincenzo Ruffo (10); and Il Primo Libro de’ Madrigali a tre voci, by Costanzo Festa (4) and Giacomo Fogliano (2), from the later, corrected, invaluable edition printed by Claudio Merulo in 1568. [N.B. the Opera Omnia  of Festa, in Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 25/7, only presents the 1564 and 1566 prints.]

The selection and editing make a very good impression, so after profiting from this new volume from the LIM singers may soon be going to Bressanone to see these prints, or other copies conserved elsewhere. Daniele Torelli’s footnotes also say which of these 16th-century prints are already digitized, and where to find them. The transcription from part-books in unbarred mensural notation to score must have been an immense job, necessary to enable Torelli to assess the works and plan a balanced selection. His critical edition of the music and underlay was perhaps less problematic, judging from the modest number of corrections. He gives short biographies of the composers, histories of the prints, and compares the literary texts found here to other versions.

The LIM has printed the music very well: there are plenty of notes per line, which allows performers to see the counterpoint, the contrasts, and whole lines at once. The underlay fits without being too small to read. It is a little hard to keep a book of 189 large pages open on a music stand, and I see why a translation of the introductory material and texts was not included, as it would have added another 40 pages.

It may still surprise English musicologists (it should not) that Italian scholars present poetic texts in normalized spelling. This does not obscure at all the archaic derivation of the words, and is absolutely required since Italian is pronounced phonetically. To do otherwise would alter the pronunciation and make some words incomprehensible. Most corrections are made, in fact, silently (e.g. where -ti- is pronounced -zi-, or -lg- must be rewritten as -gl- ). Others, if significant, are footnoted; and where Venetian spelling and pronunciation omits the doubling of consonants, it is supplied in brackets only in the critical presentation of the poetic texts, not in the music itself.

Given the uniqueness of the source, it will be hard for non-Italian readers to grasp exactly what this “collection” is. This brief summary cannot do justice to the 48-page introduction, but I hope it may explain the rather complicated, allusive and surprising title of the volume. At www.lim.it/it/edizioni-musicali/5213-madrigali-in-seminario one can see the detailed table of contents, with composers, first lines and poets, if known. They are by Ariosto, Petrarch, Bembo, Sannazaro, Parabosco, Corfino, Poliziano, and Cassola; six of the Donato texts and two of the Festa madrigals are anonymous. Perhaps the last of the short homophonic Donato Napollitane  [villanelle] is anonymous because the ‘poet’ didn’t want to divulge his name? A rough translation of No pulice n’è ’ntrato intro l’orecchia  would be:

‘A flea has gone into my ear,
which drives me mad night and day.
I know not what to do.
Run here, run there; grab this, grab that;
come to my aid! be my beauty!’

The vocal ranges of all the parts of these madrigals are quite narrow, so many soprano or canto parts could be sung by contraltos, the latter doing some tenor parts, and tenors doing some baritone parts. The basses are indeed basses, but often only because of a couple low notes at cadences that could be taken an octave higher. Thus all the music in this selection could be performed by various interchangeable voices and without transposition. There is a lot to choose from.

Barbara Sachs

Categories
Recording

A Decoration of Silence

Dark green flowers

The lute music of il Divino Francesco Canova da Milano (1497-1543), Vol. 2
72:02
BGS128 (7 60537 09045 4)

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]rancesco Canova da Milano’s ricercars and fantasias are freely composed polyphonic pieces, and consist largely of short sequences of musical ideas, each developed and explored. The present CD comprises 29 of them, which Nigel North arranges into sets according to key. The first set (Ness 6, 61, 67 65, 23) are all in F major. A distinctive feature of Francesco’s style is his constantly shifting harmonic vocabulary, heard to good effect in Ricercar 6. B naturals replace B flats to take us sharp side of the spectrum, and E flats replace E naturals to take us flat side. However, these shifts are too temporary to count as modulation to a different key, but rather they are chromatic touches to an enriched palette of chords in F major. An interesting example is Fantasia 61, which effectively ends with a perfect cadence (C – F) in bar 34, rounded off with a plagal cadence (B flat – F) in bar 36. However, to reach the B flat chord Francesco inserts a quick chord of E flat – a secondary subdominant – which exaggerates the move flat side for the plagal cadence. Many of Francesco’s pieces are similar in character, indeed some passages occur in more than one piece: the passage in bars 22-4 of Fantasia 61 is the same as bars 52-4 of Fantasia 67. For variety North adopts different speeds: Ricercar 6 is slow and rhapsodic. His rhythmic freedom is effective in clarifying phrasing and drawing attention to special chords, although sometimes it creates an unsettling jerkiness especially in descending scalic passages. Excitement is lost in bar 25, where four quavers are slowed down almost to the speed of crotchets elsewhere in the piece. In contrast, Fantasia 61 has no quavers, and North takes it at a fast and sprightly tempo. He corrects a dittographical error in Fantasia 65 by omitting bars 110-2: Arthur Ness in his collected Milano edition and Martin Shepherd in the Lute Society Milano series, both reproduce these bars, which I accept were wrongly duplicated in the original.

The G minor set (Ness 70, 71, 88, 55) begins with two beautiful miniature ricercars (70, 71) taken from Vincenzo Galilei’s Intavolatura de Lauto (Rome, 1563), published 20 years after Francesco’s death. Ricercar 70 begins with five rolled chords, and grows into imitative polyphony, with the theme heard at three different octaves. North strings his lute as Francesco did, that is with the 4th, 5th and 6th courses strung in octaves. When one of these courses is plucked, both notes will normally be heard, but it is possible to emphasise the lower octave by plucking with one’s right-hand thumb, or the upper octave by plucking with one’s index finger. In bar 31 of Ricercar 71, a low f# on the 4th course is marked with a dot for the note to be played with the index finger, but North appears to use his thumb, bringing out the lower octave instead. Fortunately this tiny detail does not detract from North’s thoughtful and expressive performance. In Ricercar 88 he changes c6 to a5, I think correctly, which coincidentally matches a similar passage in bars 55-7 of Ricercar 6; there are some beautifully placed chords in bar 27, but his rallentando at bar 51 loses the excitement of four fast cadential quavers.

The third set (Ness 78, 29, 91, 5) is in F major, and is played on a viola da mano tuned a tone higher than the lute. Both instruments were built by Malcolm Prior, and have a bright, clear tone, ideal for this repertoire. The earliest printed source of Francesco’s music is Intavolatura de Viola o vero Lauto  (1536), which mentions both instruments; it is likely that the music in Italian lute tablature was intended for the lute, and that the music in Neapolitan tablature was intended for the viola da mano, but both instruments have the same tuning, and they could be used interchangeably for any of Francesco’s music. North also uses the viola da mano for the last two sets (Ness 52, 21, 63, 20, 18, 19).

Some of Francesco’s pieces are quite short, lasting one minute or less. Ricercar 91 has a mere 29 bars, but North spins it out to 1’36” by playing it through twice. For track 14 he plays Ricercar 14, runs straight into Ricercar 74, and then goes back for a repeat of Ricercar 14, the whole thing lasting just 2’16”. Fantasia 25, on the other hand, is an extended work, made up of many sections, each developing a particular musical idea; most surprising and effective are three semibreve chords at bars 111-3, which temporarily call a halt to the constant hustle and bustle of quavers and semiquavers scurrying across the fingerboard. Fantasia 83 appears twice in Cambridge University Library Dd.2.11: on folio 16r (used by Ness in his edition), and folio 18r (used by Shepherd for the Lute Society Milano series). North plays the version on 18r, but he does not include c4 in the first bar, a note which Shepherd reinstates for the sake of imitation of the opening theme. The CD ends with a long Fantasia from the Castelfranco MS, which does not have a Ness number, because it was discovered after Ness’s edition was published.
This is North’s second CD devoted to the music of Francesco. The first was Dolcissima et Amorosa  (BGS 122). I hope he will be tempted to produce a third.

Stewart McCoy

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Categories
Sheet music

Francesco Spinacino & Joan Ambrosio Dalza, Anthology from Ottaviano Petrucci’s Tablatures for Lute

Dark green flowers

ed. Paolo Cherici
44pp. €15.95
ISMN: 979-0-2153-2359-9
SDS 25 (Bologna: Ut Orpheus, 2017)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he first publisher and printer of music was Ottaviano Petrucci (1466-1539), and his first book, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, appeared in 1501. Between 1507 and 1511 Petrucci printed six volumes of lute music with Italian lute tablature: two books by Francesco Spinacino (both 1507), a third by Giovan Maria Alemano (1508) which is now lost, a fourth by Joan Ambrosio Dalza, and two collections of lute songs by Franciscus Bossinensis (1509 and 1511). (The word “by” here does not necessarily mean composed by; it could also mean, collected, arranged, intabulated, or any combination of those.)

For the present anthology Paolo Cherici chooses a fair selection of pieces from Dalza’s collection: four calatas, two pavana-saltarello-piva suites (one alla venetiana, and the other alla ferrarese), all five tastar de corde, eight recercars, and four intabulations including two frottole by Bartolomeo Tromboncino. He could have included more calatas and more pavana-saltarello-piva suites, or even reproduced the whole of Dalza’s book, but instead he dips into Spinacino’s Libro Primo, and extracts just seven recercari. I don’t see the point, since it creates an imbalance between the two composers. I think it would have been better to save up Spinacino for a separate volume. Furthermore, to describe the edition as an Anthology from Ottaviano Petrucci’s Tablatures  is slightly misleading, since the editor includes none of the lute songs or the 46 ricercari from the two books of Bossinensis.

The format is similar to other books in the Paolo Cherici Collection. The tablature is clearly laid out on the page, with no page-turns, and there are 36 pages of music. Cherici maintains the original notation – Italian lute tablature. He provides an interesting Preface in Italian and translation into English, which gives information about Petrucci, together with what we know about the lives of Spinacino and Dalza. He compares and contrasts the contents of their books: Spinacino included intabulations of music by Franco-Flemish composers such as Josquin, Brumel, Ockeghem and Ghiselin, whereas Dalza concentrated on dance music, and music by Italian composers, notably Tromboncino. Some of Spinacino’s intabulations involved complex divisions, whereas Dalza kept the vocal original fairly intact, give or take leaving out one of the voices. It is an interesting comparison, but largely irrelevant if we have no intabulations by Spinacino in the edition. The English translation of the Preface would have benefitted from better proof reading: publicatiotts (publications), appare (appeared), and calledn (called). Strictly speaking the Salterello on page 12 should be spelt Saltarello. It is a pity Cherici does not reproduce Dalza’s introduction, which explains why there are special rhythm signs for the Saltarello and Piva (pp. 8-9), and Piva (p. 14).

As far as the editing of the music is concerned, Cherici shows where notes have been changed by putting them in square brackets. However, there is no critical commentary, so there is no way of knowing what those changes involve. The exception is a footnote for a note changed on page 7. I checked the first piece (which has no editorial square brackets) against the original and found the following alterations:

1) bar 40, 2nd note: 0 on 3 changed to 0 on 2;
2) bars 49, 50, 54, 82: right-hand fingering dots added to be consistent with similar passages;
3) bars 63, 79, 144: right-hand thumb and index dot swapped round;
4) bar 121, 3rd note: 0 on 3 changed to 0 on 4;
5) bar 127, 3rd note: 3 on 2 changed to 2 to 2;
6) bar 149, 2nd and 3rd notes: 3 on 2 changed to 3 on 3; 1 on 2 changed to 1 on 3.

The structure of this piece has puzzled me for many years, but for chord patterns to show some sort of consistency there appears to be a bar missing, perhaps because of haplology. My solution is to play bar 109 again between bars 110 and 111. Cherici reproduces the notes of the ending as they were in the original, with a pause sign over what in effect is the last chord, followed by five more notes; he does not include Dalza’s “Finis”. However, in spite of “Finis”, it is just possible that Dalza’s five extra notes were meant to lead back to the beginning as a Da Capo, in which case the last note (3 on 2) should be changed to 3 on 1 to match bar 2.

The Calata ala spagnola on page 6 of Cherici’s edition was included by Hans Judenkünig in Ain schone kunstliche vnderweisung  (1523), which helps throw light on editorial decisions:

7) bar 36, 3rd note: Cherici keeps Dalza’s 1 on 2 (e’ flat), but it is surrounded by 2 on 2 (e’ natural). There is a good case for changing it to 2 on 2, especially as that is what Judenkünig has done;
8) bar 71, 1st chord: Dalza and Judenkünig both have 0 on 5, which Cherici (rightly, I think) changes to 3 on 5, but where are the square brackets?
9) bar 84, 1st two events: Dalza and Judenkünig both have 3 on 6 followed by no bass note; Cherici changes this (unnecessarily, I think) to 3 on 5 and 2 on 5, but even though he puts these notes in square brackets, there is no way of telling what was in his source.

Despite my various cavils, this is a useful edition, and hopefully more lute music published by Petrucci will appear in future editions.

Stewart McCoy

Categories
Recording

Italian Lute Virtuosi of the Renaissance

Dark green flowers

Jakob Lindberg
81:11
BIS-2202 SACD
Music by Marco dall’Aquila, Alberto da Mantova & Francesco da Milano

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he three Italian virtuosi represented here are Francesco da Milano (1497-1543), Marco dall’ Aquila (c.1480-after 1538), and Alberto da Mantova (c.1500-51), who was also known in France as Albert de Rippe. The CD begins with Francesco’s well-known Fantasia “La Compagna”, played by Jakob Lindberg at quite a fast tempo, with crystal clear notes in the treble supported by the distinctive timbre of gut strings strung in octaves in the bass. The sound of the so-called ‘Pistoy’ bass strings made by Dan Larson soon fades away, but this is actually an advantage: modern synthetic bass strings can ring on too long, muddying melodic lines.‘La Compagna’ is typical Francesco: a polyphonic section develops the opening theme of d”, e” flat, d”, followed by a fast little scale rising from g’. After 49 bars the pace intensifies with those same musical ideas explored in a variety of ways, culminating in a scale shooting up to the 12th fret. The same opening three-note motif recurs in Fantasias 66 and 33 (the fantasy to which Fantasia 34 is the companion). Lindberg’s tone quality is exquisite, but I wonder if the microphone was too sensitive or placed a little too close to him. Particularly in the slower pieces one can hear background squeaks produced by his fingers as they move along the strings, which would not be so noticeable in a live performance. This is evident, for example, in Ricercar 51, which he takes at a slower, more reflective speed (lasting 3’19”, compared with Paul O’Dette’s 2’41”). Other pieces by Francesco include Fantasias 3, 15, 22, 33, 55 and 66, and four intabulations of songs by Arcadelt, Festa, Richafort and Sermisy.

Unfortunately some lutenists today ignore Marco dall’ Aquila, erroneously seeing him as Francesco’s poor relation, yet they overlook some fine compositions, ranging from the short, simply stated Ricercar 30 to the more extended Ricercar 32. In his informative liner notes Lindberg describes Marco dall’ Aquila as an innovator, and draws attention to his use of broken chords in Ricercar 30, which is similar to the brisé style of lutenists 100 years later. Marco’s Saltarello ‘La Traditora’ bustles along nicely, with tasteful divisions now in the treble, now in the inner voice, adding momentum and uplift. His intabulation of Josquin’s Plus nulz regrets  is a particularly fine piece of music, with unusual harmonies reminiscent of the 15th century.

The music of Alberto da Mantova is often very difficult to play, and his fantasias are generally quite long. Fantasia 20 is the longest track of the CD, lasting 6’51”. It consists of strict polyphony which occasionally produces some surprising dissonance. Lindberg’s unhurried performance is masterful, as he gently plays off the different voices against each other with carefully shaped phrases. Alberto’s five variations on La Romenesca ground have rather prosaic divisions, and the last is punctuated with predictable little dabs of fast cadential figures. His virtuosity is more evident in his intabulation of Festa’s O passi sparsi, the first of two settings in volume 3 of the CNRS collected works: crotchet and quaver divisions in the treble and bass, extravagant semiquaver flourishes ending with super-quick demisemiquavers, brief excursions into triple time, and false relations (f natural/f sharp, e flat and e natural) adding spice to the harmony.

Stewart McCoy

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Cifras Imaginarias

Modern floral

Música para tañer a dos vihuelas
Ariel Abramovich, Jacob Heringman
53:21
Arcana A 428
Cabezón, Crequillon, Josquin, da Milano, da Modena, Palero, Vasquez, Verdelot, Willaert & Cancionero de Uppsala

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]riel Abramovich and Jacob Heringman have joined forces to produce an interesting and varied anthology of music from the 15th and 16th centuries arranged by them for two vihuelas. Very little music survives for this combination – a mere 17 pieces arranged by Enríquez de Valderrábano for vihuelas tuned at the unison, or a minor third, a fourth, or a fifth apart – but, as John Griffiths argues in his liner notes, vihuelas were almost certainly played together in a variety of social contexts, and the present CD gives an idea of what this lost repertory may have been like. The players use two vihuelas by Martin Haycock, both tuned to g’, and they take it in turns to play a bass vihuela in d’ by Marcus Wesche. The word “Cifras” in the title, literally means “figures”, and refers to the numbers used in tablature, and by association tablature or music notated in tablature.

The first track, Josquin’s Illibata Dei Virgo nutrix, shows how the five voices are distributed between the two vihuelas: Abramovich (vihuela in g’) plays voices I and IV, while Heringman (vihuela in d’) plays voices II, III and V. This is similar to how Valdarrábano distributes voices, and it works well here. (Some other intabulators, for example Phalèse, arranging music for two lutes, have each lute doubling the bass, which creates a fuller texture, but loses clarity of line.) The first six bars are played by Abramovich alone, followed by Heringman alone for the next six. In bars 57-65 there is interplay between pairs of voices: short phrases of four, five and six notes for voices II and V on the bass vihuela, are echoed by similar phrases for voices I and IV on the other instrument. Having two vihuelas enables polyphonic lines to be preserved, for example, in bars 13-14, where voices IV and V cross over each other. If this passage were played on a single instrument, the two melodic lines would be reduced to a meaningless repetition of chords. Other pieces by Josquin are Dulces exuviae, Pater Noster, and Ave Maria, all timeless and sublime. I assume the divisions in these pieces are the players’ own, because they are idiomatic and tasteful, enhance the music, and help maintain forward movement; many 16th-century intabulations have an excess of divisions, which almost become an end in themselves. Although Antonio de Cabezón describes his keyboard music as being “obras de musica para tecla, arpa y vihuela”, it is impossible to play most of it on a single vihuela: the overall range is too wide, and having divisions for both hands on the keyboard creates technical problems for a vihuelist. However, it does fit remarkably well on two vihuelas tuned a fourth apart for Thomas Créquillon’s Un gay bergier, a “Pavana Italiana”, and Claudin de Sermisy’s Dont vient cela. There are two pieces attributed to Juan Vasquez. The first, Dizen a mi que los amores he, is the five-part setting from the Uppsala manuscript. It has quite a few false relations, including a particularly squelchy one at bar 22. The duo have concocted their own ending of fast chords, which I don’t think enhances the overall mood of the piece. The second is the well-known De los álamos vengo, madre, played with invigorating gusto. I enjoyed listening to the CD – they play well together, and capture a variety of moods. The only frustrating thing was trying to navigate my way through the CD on my computer – the track numbers and titles are given in some curious eastern alphabet which is totally incomprehensible to me.

Stewart McCoy

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Recording

Contrapuntal Byrd

Dark green flowers

Colin Tilney harpsichord
62:33
Music & Arts CD-1288

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he steady trickle of new recordings devoted to keyboard music by Byrd continues with this fine selection from the distinguished English musician Colin Tilney who is based in Canada. In this anthology, he investigates Byrd’s copious engagement with polyphony in the varied forms in which he composed for keyboard. On the surface, Tilney surveys dances, variations, fantasias and grounds, but he makes subtle choices, in that Pavana Lachrymae  is both dance and variation, Quadran  is not only dance but also ground, and in one of its sources The seventh pavan is titled Pavana. Canon. 2. pts in one  indicating another aspect of counterpoint within the structure of a dance.

In a selection such as this, with an expressed context, there are always going to be pieces which one might wish that the executant had included. That said, Tilney’s choices from various forms all numerously represented within Byrd’s extensive oeuvre are judicious and in some cases revelatory. For instance, The maiden’s song  is one of Byrd’s least recorded works, yet by drawing attention to it in this contrapuntal context, not just as a bunch of diverting variations on a pleasant old tune, Tilney reveals what a magnificent work this is, both in its construction and effect – he rightly and helpfully draws attention in his booklet notes (in which he gives Byrd’s date of birth as 1543 rather than the now accepted 1539/40) to its “most heavenly” ending – enabling the listener to hear a perhaps unfamiliar and certainly neglected work in a new and shining light.

Tilney’s trick is to balance unhurried tempi with an intense response to each piece, so that there are no gratuitous pyrotechnics, yet the fire in his interpretations is intense. This is particularly true in another relatively neglected work, the intimidating Quadran  pavan and galliard with its jagged dissonances and rhythms which are all of a piece with Byrd’s contrapuntal vision, not one which doggedly pursues counterpoint for its own sake, but in which these harmonic and rhythmic implications are developed to produce a musical narrative or travelogue to enthral and enlighten both the player and the listener.

The two fantasias could not be better chosen to illustrate Byrd’s contrapuntal genius and Tilney’s enlightening response to it. The Fantasia in d is a work of the composer’s maturity, confident in its structure and in the distribution of melodies, rhythms and other devices among the dazzlingly moving parts of the whole. It is slightly surprising that in his booklet Tilney does not mention the possible reference to the plainsong Salve regina  thought by many (but perhaps not CT!) to shape the opening of the Fantasia in d. The Fantasia in a is an early work, Byrd’s (and arguably Europe’s) first keyboard masterpiece, and here as in some of his other fantasias for keyboards and for viols, the raging torrent of ideas and polyphonic techniques has no right at all to come together so compellingly in such a convincing whole. Tilney eschews the repeat at bars 58-61 which is also ignored by Francis Tregian in the Fitzwilliam virginal book, but is given, presumably with some authority as a pupil of Byrd, by Tomkins in the work’s other source. He also makes what feels like the longest pause on disc (there have been many recordings of this challenging tour de force) at the change of tempo in bar 129, but this seems consistent with Tilney’s vision of Byrd’s vision. Which leads to the conclusion that in their respective ways, Colin Tilney and William Byrd are both visionaries.

Richard Turbet

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Palestrina: Missa Confitebor tibi Domine

Dark green flowers

Yale Schola Cantorum, David Hill
70:24
hyperion CDA68210
+Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas,* Confitebor tibi Domine, Introduxit me rex,* Loquebantur variis linguis,* Magnificat primi toni & Ricercar del quinto tuono* (*played by Bruce Dickey cornett, and Liuwe Tamminga organ); Ricercar del sesto tuono (organ solo)

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] can still remember being stunned by the 1996 Dorian CD (DIS 80146) of polychoral music by Victoria sung by Saint Clement’s Choir, Philadelphia – I had no idea that American choirs could and did sound so good. We ignore the American choral scene at our peril, as it is a sophisticated and well-financed sector which produces excellent results. Under the direction of David Hill, Yale Schola Cantorum produce a truly beautiful performance of the ordinary of Palestrina’s double-choir Missa Confitebor tibi Domine, preceded by the motet he based it on, the eight-part Magnificat primi toni  and various instrumental goodies. The instrumental works are played by the legendary Bruce Dickey on the cornett and Liuwe Tammingo on the organ, the latter also contributing a solo organ Ricercar. These instrumental tracks were recorded in Bologna, allowing Tammingo access to what sounds like an appropriate period instrument although no details are given, whereas the choral music was recorded in the lavish acoustic of Christ Church, New Haven, Connecticut. Built upon a clearly very dynamic church music tradition at Yale, the Schola Cantorum produce a beautifully refined sound and with David Hill at the helm give an intelligent and thoroughly musical account of Palestrina’s music. Add to this admirable package a cogent and very readable note by the authoritative Noel O’Reagan and the result is extremely impressive in every respect.

D. James Ross

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Tallis: The Votive Antiphons

Dark green flowers

The Cardinall’s Musick, Andrew Carwood
77:39
hyperion CDA68250

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his piledriver of a disc consists of the six votive antiphons – mighty works, most of which clock in at well over ten minutes – extracted from the Tallis Edition which The Cardinall’s Musick, aka TCM, recorded on five discs between 2005 and 2016, as a successor to the thirteen discs of their prizewinning Byrd Edition. Also present is the ubiquitous and incongruously tiny hymn O nata lux. This was included presumably as a reassuring lure to buyers well disposed to Tallis but unfamiliar with the longest works on the album, or perhaps simply because there was room for such a short item; in any event, I wish that the less familiar but equally fine Euge caeli porta  had been given the nod.

The quality of all the performances is very high, though not entirely consistent. On a few occasions the solo voices in the duets or trios that open these antiphons are, if not actually flat, on the underside of the notes. That said, Andrew Carwood’s interpretations are consistently and unfailingly perceptive. Also these interpretations respond to the acoustic of the recording venue, Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel Castle, so that pacing and balance between the parts is ideal, never so brisk as to obscure individual detail yet maintaining a pulse appropriate to the texture and indeed the texts themselves. There are some formidably fine alternative versions of all these pieces; the USP (unique selling point) of this disc is of course that all six votive antiphons are, so to speak, here under the one roof.

The first surviving reference to Tallis is as organist of Dover Priory in 1531, after which he joined the musical staff of Canterbury Cathedral. One of the earliest pieces on this album is Ave Dei patris filia. David Allinson, from whose Antico edition it is sung, has established that Tallis owes much to Fayrfax’s setting (recorded by TCM on Gaudeamus CD GAU 142) and it required some serious reconstructive surgery by the editor to render it performable. Most alternative versions of these works are by fellow adult chamber choirs, but the most significant comparison for this and the two other earliest works is on Thomas Tallis: the Canterbury Years  performed by The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral (Metronome MET CD 1014). This outstanding release also includes Ave rosa sine spinis  and Salve intemerata. Here is truly a case where anyone with a penchant for this repertory should definitely possess both recordings. TCM has all the virtues of a specialist and experienced adult chamber choir, as delineated in the previous paragraph. Canterbury take nearly three extra minutes over Ave Dei patris filia, exploiting their cathedral’s generous acoustic, while showcasing their remarkable trebles and expert lay clerks; the delivery by the latter of the first half of the concluding Amen is one of the most memorable and gripping passages of singing in any recording of this repertory. It has been suggested that the relatively shorter Ave rosa sine spinis  was composed for the more modest resources at Dover. Yet again Canterbury provide a penetratingly committed and perceptive performance of another slightly rambling master piece (in the old sense of a piece of work presented by a journeyman in order for it to be evaluated as being worthy of a craftsman), as they do the more musically concise but much longer Salve intemerata  which they hold together through a combination of passionate commitment and sheer beauty in response to Tallis’s tighter construction, allied again to a sensitive response to the cavernous acoustic in which they are performing. For their part TCM provide an almost forensic response to Tallis’s music, with not an harmonic moment or incident overlooked, but then again, neither do Canterbury miss a trick with their more leisurely though equally purposeful gait. If one were focusing on just the Canterbury works, with the Missa Salve intemerata  an added attraction, this luminous recording by Canterbury Cathedral Choir, which seems to exude their pride in having Tallis as one of their predecessors, is an essential consideration.

Another male liturgical choir, that of King’s College, Cambridge under David Willcocks, provides the most interesting comparison with TCM’s rendering of the more compact Sancte Deus for higher voices. Sir David’s recordings of Tallis were revelatory in their day and set the benchmark, either to be emulated or reacted against. In any event, as demonstrated by King’s recording of this antiphon, they possess the timeless virtues of sensitivity to recording location, to the meaning of the text, and to internal balance in relation to overall sound. Meanwhile TCM’s version is as good as it gets when sung by an adult professional chamber choir populated by specialists.

The same can be said about their reading of Gaude gloriosa dei mater, a mature work to set beside Tye’s psalm setting Peccavimus cum patribus  or William Mundy’s Vox patris caelestis  “for substance” as Thomas Tomkins might have said. Here the most intriguing comparison is with the recent recording by Alamire (Obsidian CD716) directed by David Skinner, co-founder with Andrew Carwood of TCM. Divergent career exigences necessitated his withdrawal from TCM’s Byrd Edition after disc nine of the thirteen, and while Andrew became Master of the Choristers at St Paul’s Cathedral, David fetched up at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in the same role, and founded his own choir, Alamire. The USP of the disc on which his recording of Gaude gloriosa  appears – Thomas Tallis, Queen Katherine Parr & Songs of Reformation  – is that the work appears twice: beginning the disc as a votive antiphon, and concluding it as an English contrafactum with words provided by Henry VIII’s final queen who seems to have commissioned Tallis to set her words to the music of his antiphon. Alamire’s Latin version is 28 seconds shorter than TCM’s, and feels it, while the English contrafactum is a further three seconds shorter but – probably appropriately given the politico-religious agenda behind it – feels even more driven. If Alamire’s version occasionally glosses over some of the internal details that are more audible in TCM’s recording, it is nevertheless still a fine achievement and provides a fascinating insight into an aspect of Tudor history. There is also a recording by a male liturgical choir, that of New College, Oxford, which is perfectly acceptable if one has a preference for such ostensibly more authentic choirs over those consisting of female and male adults (CRD3429). For all that this is a work of Tallis’s maturity, and therefore composed well into what we now call the Renaissance, there is an intriguing suggestion of the mediaeval at the words “quae corpore et anima” sung by a trio of inner parts.

Probably the latest of Tallis’s votive antiphons is Suscipe quaeso  in which all of his compositional expertise – including the manipulation of textures, strong melodies, striking harmonies, rhetorical use of homophony within a mainly polyphonic framework – is encapsulated within a work half the length of the longest of his earliest attempts in this form, and is illustrated in microcosm by his setting of the word “peccavi” towards the end of the first section. Although no recordings by male liturgical choirs are currently available, there are some varied approaches from the adult chamber choirs. Again there is an alternative version by Alamire on their recording of the complete Cantiones sacrae  published by Tallis and Byrd in 1575 (Obsidian CD706) here sung, perhaps a little too briskly to the occasional detriment of the audibility of inner parts, by single voices where TCM employ two per part. Another fine version, different in character from Alamire in being more sinewy, is provided on Thomas Tallis’s Secret Garden  by Ensemble europeen William Byrd directed by Graham O’Reilly (Passacaille 963) who also include both Gaude gloriosa  and Salve intemerata. The most radical version is by Clare Wilkinson and the Rose Consort of Viols on Four Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal (Deux-Elles DXL1129) which, given artistes of this outstanding quality, works well: one soon forgets that one is listening to a single voice (singing the superius part) and six viols rather than seven vocal parts.

It remains to say that TCM’s version of the ubiquitous O nata lux  is the best and most satisfying (that final cadence … twice …!) that this reviewer has heard since when, as a schoolboy, he first heard it on the first of those two famous recordings of Tallis, mentioned above, by King’s College, Cambridge under David Willcocks. No doubt TCM will be happy to be mentioned in the same sentence as King’s in this context, and suffice to say (tongue now removed from cheek) that the compliment is sincere.

Whether one purchases this disc depends on the purchaser’s attitude to Tallis, Tudor music, owning duplicates, time, and money. Personally I own multiple versions of all these pieces, many of which I have had the pleasure of playing while researching and writing this review. I would not wish to be without any of those that I have mentioned, and if, in the tradition of Desert Island Discs, I had to make do with only one such recording, it would be the wonderfully atmospheric Canterbury disc containing the three earliest antiphons. If you already own recordings of all these pieces, you would still encounter fresh approaches to, and insights into, each one on TCM’s disc. If you own some of the works, it is worth purchasing this disc for those that you are missing. And if you have none of these pieces yet on disc (or the equivalent) do not hesitate to purchase it.

Richard Turbet

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Categories
Recording

Si par fortune

Dark green flowers

Les Joueurs de Traverse
56:37
Son an ero 09
Music by Certon, Crécquillon, Gallus, Gombert, Hofhaimer, Le Jeune, Josquin, Lemlin, Lupi, de Manchicourt, Ortiz, Passereau, Senfl, de Sermisy, Stoltzer, Susato, Verdelot & Wolff

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll too often people imagine that the transverse flute arrived on the scene fully formed towards the end of the 17th century in time to sweep away the recorder and poised ready to play the great flute music of the Baroque, but of course the flute’s history goes right back to the middle ages and far beyond. How lovely, then, to hear for a change Renaissance music played on a consort of appropriate flutes. Les Joueurs de Traverse range far and wide through much-loved Renaissance repertoire, and I found myself frequently singing along with a familiar chanson or madrigal. It is remarkable how different the sound of a flute consort is from a recorder consort, and the players exploit fully the enhanced dynamic range of the flute, which would lead it eventually to be preferred over the recorder. The consort has a fine sense of ensemble and achieves a lovely blended sound, while the unequal temperament produces some wonderfully pure chords. This is a beautiful package, visually and musically, and delightful to see the programme notes in French, English – and Breton.

D. James Ross

Visit the group’s website (seulement en français…) for more information: click here.