Calcutta Evergreen... E Altre Canzoni

Another stunning set from Harmonia Mundi in their rare 90's boxed editions of music from the Baroque and,as in this case, the Renaissance. Well renowned performers of period music jostle for attention on discs that range from "The Renaissance of the Mass","The Culmination of the Motet" "The Era of Polyphony", "the Golden Age of the Madrigal" to "The Instrumental Art" which features some wonderful Lute performances from Paul O'Dette. Composers include Gesualdo, Josquin Desprez, Claudio Monteverdi as well as many lesser known composers that prove to be very worthwhile discoveries.

Gabrieli's music, written for a comparatively large ensemble of cornetts, sackbuts (= trombones), dulcian, violins, viola and organ (and in one instance for theorbo), is some of the earliest that can be considered "orchestral", although the use of cornetts and trombones makes it sound, in the main, a bit like music for brass band! The pieces appear to be instrumental developments from earlier vocal compositions (thus the title "Canzone", derived from the word for song) and reflect the situation at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, where groups of singers or instrumentalists were placed at various points within the church building to create what we might today call a "surround" effect.

This is the fifth and final volume in the Ligia series of the complete keyboard music of Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643). Previous volumes reviewed in Fanfare include the Primo libro di capricci and Secondo libro di toccate (both 34:2), and the Primo libro di toccate (34:6). The present volume includes published collections from the beginning, middle, and end of Frescobaldi’s career. The Primo libro delle fantasie was published while the composer was still in Milan; it served as a kind of audition piece that eventually won him the position of organist at St. Peter’s in Rome.

Andrea Gabrieli (c. 1510-1586) was one of the first native Venetians to hold the positions of Second and then First Organist in the basilica of San Marco. These were the highest musical appointments in the city, and their holders was expected to compose much of the music they played. In the event, like his predecessor Merulo and his successor (his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli), Andrea was adept at all musical forms, especially the new and up-to-date (very secular) madrigal, a sort of vocal chamber music. A splendid selection of these, interspersed with instrumental canzoni (in which one can see the influence he had on his more-famous nephew) that offer welcome contrast to the vocal music. Manfred Cordes leads Weser-Renaissance Bremen in pungent period-instrument performances.