Music in Europe at The Time of The Renaissance

Under the label Alia Vox Diversa , Jordi Savall invites the ensemble Tasto Solo, founded in 2006, whose first albums were critically acclaimed : Diapason d’or, Amadeus “CD du Mois”, Ritmo & Audio Clásica “Excellent”, Pizzicato “Supersonic”, Scherzo “Exception- Nel”, France Musique “Coup de Coeur”… It brings us back to the Europe of the XVIIth Century , which experienced an unparalleled development of treatises about the art of instru- mental and vocal performance. Italy was the epic enter of a new style derived from the world of dance. This album revolves mainly around the work of composer Vincenzo Ruffo and his contemporaries. The instruments used in the present recording are typical of the Italian culture of the early Renaissance in chamber music : a small harpsichord without damper in the upper register, a simple harp, a viola da gamba and a lute.

Released in March 1978, the album featured the song “Northern Lights”, a Top Ten hit single in the UK and Europe, and was a successful hit album in the UK, USA and Canada. By the late 1970s the line-up of highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic and electric guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, acoustic & electric guitars, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion) had recorded a series of acclaimed albums that fused classical music influences with progressive rock and had earned a loyal following in Europe and had enjoyed wider success in the United States and Japan.

English composer and violinist William Brade was a significant transitional figure in instrumental music between the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Brade is credited with transplanting English musical practices most readily associated with William Byrd, Peter Philips, and John Dowland to North German and Scandinavian soil, and in aiding the transformation from the Renaissance notion of the English consort to the more continental Baroque idea of a string orchestra.

La Morra - Dame de Deuil: Musical Offerings for Marguerite of Austria (1480-1530) (2005) {Etcetera KTC 4011}
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© 2005 Klara / Etcetera Records | KTC 4011
Classical / Early Music / Renaissance

Marguerite of Austria (1480-1530) lived a sad life, by the time she was thirty she was berieved of her child, family and a future on the French throne. Nevertheless, Marguerite was artistically gifted and enjoyed the comforting company of writers, musicians and composers at her court in Mechelen. Her library is a ‘mer à boire’ of exceptional musical manuscripts. Musical works reflecting the grief and unhappiness of the narrator fill the greater part of a splendid manuscript housed nowadays in the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels; it was undoubtedly prepared for Marguerite between 1508 and 1516 in full awareness of her musical tastes and her predilection for mournful subjects.

The inclusion of the one surviving Mass by the Flemish composer Gery de Ghersem, most of whose music perished in the fire which accompanied the Lisbon earthquake, was an added incentive to listen to this before the other CDs and DVDs which arrived in the same batch. In the event, neither the music nor the performances disappointed and the recording and documentation provided added enjoyment.l