Montserrat Figueras & Jordi Savall - Entremeses Del Siglo De Oro: Lope de Vega su tiempo (2003) {Alia Vox AVSA9831}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 409 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 186 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 95 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1987, 2003 Alia Vox | AVSA9831
Classical / Vocal / Chamber Music / Renaissance / Baroque

In AliaVox’s release of the album Entremeses Del Siglo De Oro: Lope de Vega y su tiempo (1550-1650), which translates to “Intermission [music] of the Golden Century: Lope de Vega and his era,” we find soprano Montserrat Figueras and the group Hespèrion XX, Jordi Savall conducting, bringing us some of the finest examples of period music that I know of. The voice of Montserrat Figueras has the limpid and pure quality of a fine recorder, that is, each note is nearly as possible free from embellishment that became part and parcel of vocal training in the following centuries. The ensemble playing of Hespèrion, a group I’ve known for ten years, has never sounded better. Hats off to Jordi Savall. The music itself is akin to entre-act music written for the Elizabethan theater, most notably Shakespeare’s plays. You’ll note the similarity of the Spanish word entremeses and the English word intermission.

For a long time Johannes Ockeghem (ca.1420-1497) was one of the most famous Unknown Persons in music history. There is no doubt about his position as the most important representative of the second generation of Franco-Flemish composers.

The Brabant Ensemble continue their investigation into unknown jewels of the Low Countries Renaissance, researched by their director Stephen Rice and recorded with equal amounts of passion and erudition by the young singers of the group.

Jean Mouton was a Renaissance French composer and choirmaster, much acknowledged but more rarely recorded, who wrote a body of music that’s both technically inventive and immediately appealing. Here Stephen Rice and The Brabant Ensemble—renowned exponents of sixteenth-century Franco-Flemish repertoire—perform all Mouton’s eight-part music, two four-part motets, and his only five-part Mass setting, the Missa Tu es Petrus. The latter is characterized by light, clear textures and a soaring cantus firmus, while the double-choir Nesciens mater is rightly famous for its ingenious canon. Sheer compositional skill aside, all these works demonstrate Mouton’s vivid and original imagination—one that has the ability to speak directly to our time.

The desire of Maria Ferré was to combine two of the most important instruments for her – the Renaissance lute and Baroque guitar – led her on her path towards the Renaissance guitar. The “master instrument” lute thereby profited from the sincere energy of the guitar. Ferré’s aim to exploit the potential of this instrument to its full range and her interest in unknown music played a significant role in the selection of the pieces for this recording and she decided to arrange works specifically for the Renaissance guitar.

Over the first half of the sixteenth century this Flemish composer was one of the key figures in Western music, instrumental in the development both of the madrigal and of church music fro double chorus. From 1527 until his death he was maestro di capella at St Mark’s in Venice, but this music dates mainly from his earlier years, when he achieved nine setting of the Mass. This splendid offering from Summerly and his Oxford Camerata is the only one available, a magnificent ‘parody mass’, using as its base a motet by Jean Richafort, a piece included here as a prelude. Willaert’s setting rises to a sublime conclusion in the extended Agnus Dei, in flowing polyphony. The Magnificat and Ave Maria offers inspired music too, performed with equal freshness and dedication. Vividly atmospheric sound.

Although the works of Josquin DesPrez (cl440-1521) are better known today than those of any other fifteenth-century composer, his biography remains shrouded in uncertainties. The general outlines –- his birth in the area of northern France that produced so many composers of the day, his travel to Milan, Rome and Ferrara, and then his return to the north at the end of his life - are clear. But, his connections to the Court of France, to the Provençal court of King René, to the court in Hungary, and many other details about his life remain contested or simply unknowable.

Scandinavia’s archaeologically known prehistory encompasses around twelve thousand years, culminating in the Viking period (c.800–1050AD). The Middle Ages then followed, around six hundred years later than in continental Europe – a late development due to the long period in which ice still covered Europe’s northern parts. Volume 2 in Delphian Records’ groundbreaking collaboration with the European Music Archaeology Project constructs a soundscape of these two periods, featuring both music improvised on Viking instruments, and notated songs and instrumental items from the early centuries of Christianity in Scandinavia.

The members of Cinquecento turn to perhaps the pre-eminent composer of the sixteenth century: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah would have been integral to the liturgical rites of Holy Week: here is one of the most sublime.

Few ensembles are as difficult to write about as the incomparable Tallis Scholars. Inevitably, you just string together an array of superlatives and hope that other reviewers haven't gushed about the same attributes using the same words in precisely the same order. The ensemble's recording of the Christmas Mass and the antiphon Ave Dei patris filia marks both its fourth recording of works by Renaissance master Thomas Tallis and one of Gimell's last albums to be made during an unhappy affiliation with Universal Classics. (The label has since reverted to independent status, distributed in the United States by Harmonia Mundi.) As has been the case with other Tallis Scholars projects, the singers have rediscovered missing manuscripts and have put together the first modern performance editions of both of these works. Their complete mastery of their chosen subject, combining keen scholarship and transcendent beauty, makes this a radiant recording. The clarity and luminescent tone that conductor Peter Phillips achieves with his singers are simply superb. The recording, made at their frequent locale of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Norfolk, is a faithful one–but don't miss any opportunity to hear them live.

Tarleton's Jig - Elizabethan Street Songs (2008) {Globe Editions GE 002}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 424 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 153 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 116 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2008 Globe Editions | GE 002
Classical / Folk / Renaissanse / Early Music / English Folk

Elizabethan Street Songs is a new approach in the way early music has hitherto been presented and performed and heralds the first music release of Shakespeare’s Globe new record label, Globe Editions. Entertainment, innovation and excellence lie at the very heart of this release. Capturing the earthy atmosphere of 16th & 17th Century street life, with jigs, ballads and bawdy songs Elizabethan Street Songs is an authentic collection of music performed by acclaimed early music band Tarleton’s Jig.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Milan Cathedral acted as a magnet to many of the finest composers of the time. Yet the Cathedral's maestro di cappella for almost thirty years, Hermann Matthias Werrecore, is almost completely unknown to us today. Why was he forgotten? Did his Flemish origins mean he was never properly adopted by his Milanese congregation? Did his later reputation suffer from confusion with his countryman Matthias Le Maistre? Six of Werrecore's surviving motets are presented here the first time any of his sacred music has been recorded. They are heard alongside works by composers Werrecore knew, drawn mostly from the holdings of the Milan library during his tenure there. Siglo de Oro's act of rediscovery reveals the exceptional quality of the music, and Patrick Allies directs them in performances of extraordinary flair.

Like many of even the most prolific and celebrated composers of the sixteenth century, Jacobus Clemens non Papa (‘not the Pope’) has offered the history books little factual material with which to work. In contrast to the paucity of biographical material, however, many sources of Clemens' music survive. Indeed, he is one of the most widely published musicians of the entire century with fifteen Masses, over two hundred motets, many Dutch psalms and French chansons to his name.

Sergio Vartolo gave us a broader understanding of Palestrina's output of Masses by recording for another label a group of less familiar Mass settings, many for the first time, that offer a contrast with the more familiar solemn polyphonic style.

In the margin of official religious institutions, Catholic confraternities and Muslim orders offered a mystical experience. Music played an important role in their rituals, as a way of access to God. Simple, repetitive, haunting, this music sung in groups during processions or devotional meetings was intended to place the assembly in a state of ecstatic trance.