The Renaissance Nude

Warner Classics is excited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Chanticleer, “the world’s reigning male chorus” (The New Yorker), with a new recording, Then and There, Here and Now, to be released October 12. The group will tour the album around the world, with 52 performances across the United States, Europe, and Russia including stops in Dublin, Wexford, Paris, Luxembourg, Budapest, Prague, Hannover, Leipzig, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.

Capirola was one of the finest composers and lutenists of his day and there have been few opportunities to hear a full disc of his music. The background to this collection is fascinating and worth mentioning before we continue. The back of the CD booklet has a beautiful reproduction of a manuscript not surprisingly called the ‘Capirola Notebook’. This is an example of lute tablature in the form of a transcription by Capirola of the mass fragment Qui tolis pechata mondi (sic) from an unnamed Josquin Mass.