Denis Villenueve

Held in high esteem by his contemporaries, Orfeo Vecchi stands out as a remarkable figure with regard to the sacred repertoire he produced from the late 1500s. Respectful of the written texts while elegantly expressing pictorial content through subtle dialogue, antiphony and counterpoint, the 20 pieces of the Motectorum sex vocibus liber tertius form a rich and eclectic collection that fully reveals Vecchi’s mastery and religious inspiration. This world premiere recording has been made by musicians involved in recovering the wealth of unpublished materials held in Vercelli Cathedral, where Vecchi studied and worked for much of his career.

Doulce mémoire here delves into the repertoire of French songs that were central to the first printed score in the history of music, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton (Venice, 1501). This repertoire dates from the end of the 15th century and includes music from not only the French and Burgundian courts but also from the chanson rustique, a new genre that was in use at the court of Louis XII (1462-1515). This singular repertoire is based on popular melodies that dealt with everyday, amorous, erotic and satirical subjects; the texts have an irregular versification that was known as ‘rural rhetoric’ at that time.

As with many episodes in Franz Schubert’s life, uncertainty surrounds the origins of his two trios for piano, violin and cello. We know that they were played to a Viennese audience, one on 26 December 1827 and the other on 26 March 1828, but not in which order. Although it is more likely that the Trio no. 1 in B flat major op. 99 was performed before the Trio no. 2 in E flat major op. 100, musicologists remain divided on the subject. Documentary sources provide a certain amount of information about the Trio op. 100: the manuscript tells us it was composed in November 1827, while Schubert’s correspondence shows a composer desperate to have his work published, even to the extent of removing a number of development sections and a repeat from the final movement because some publishers found the work too long. The manuscript of the first trio has been lost. By comparing indirect evidence, however, including the different types of manuscript paper Schubert used, we may conjecture that the Trio op. 99 was also composed in the autumn of 1827.