Gondko

Interrelated traditions of keyboard and lute playing that flourished in German-speaking lands in the age immediately predating the invention of music printing have fascinated us ever since our very first encounter with the surviving repertoire that originated from these traditions. Fifteenth-century music for keyboard and plucked stringed instruments is without doubt an exciting area in the early history of European instrumental music, but one paradoxically seldom visited by performers and thus virtually unknown to the wider public. Many pieces are recorded here for the first time, and it is our hope that the present disc may contribute to restoring the remnants of a once flourishing and highly refined art to the place they deserve in the awareness of music lovers.

The release of a new recording from La Morra is always exciting in terms of creative and imaginative artistry and not just within the realms of late medieval and early Renaissance music. With a disc focusing on the 15th-century composer Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz, in a production from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis strand on Glossa, the ensemble is set to repeat its happy knack of alighting upon an area of largely untravelled repertoire and making a fascinating programme from it.

In addition to the works attributed to the lutenists active at the Royal Polish court in the late sixteenth century, there is a substantial repertoire of compositions identified as ‘Polish dances’ or ‘Polish songs’ which have been preserved in numerous sources of late Renaissance lute music. Characterized by an irresistible melodic charm and a straightforward harmonic and rhythmical texture, such musical polonica spread across Europe, achieving what might have been the widest distribution of musical ‘Polishness’ before Chopin.

"Dum vixi tacui; mortua dulce cano" ("While I lived I was silent; dead, I sing sweetly"). Found in the portrait of the sixteenth-century lute maker Gaspar Tieffenbrucker, these words, spoken by the imaginary tone wood used for centuries in the manufacture of string instruments, fittingly depict its double life.This recording celebrates a historical instrument, whose voice time did not manage to silence: the so-called “Presbyter” (although in actual fact anonymous) lute, possibly made in Padua in 1595. One of the oldest playable lutes in existence, it was restored to its likely first configuration (a seven-course lute) and still features its original soundboard and back. Inspired by the cosmopolitan nature of the anthologies of lute music compiled at the time of the instrument’s presumed completion, Michal Gondko showcases its expressive potential with a diverse programme, placing emphasis on high-quality yet largely neglected repertoire, most of which has not been recorded to date.

"Dum vixi tacui; mortua dulce cano" ("While I lived I was silent; dead, I sing sweetly"). Found in the portrait of the sixteenth-century lute maker Gaspar Tieffenbrucker, these words, spoken by the imaginary tone wood used for centuries in the manufacture of string instruments, fittingly depict its double life.This recording celebrates a historical instrument, whose voice time did not manage to silence: the so-called “Presbyter” (although in actual fact anonymous) lute, possibly made in Padua in 1595. One of the oldest playable lutes in existence, it was restored to its likely first configuration (a seven-course lute) and still features its original soundboard and back. Inspired by the cosmopolitan nature of the anthologies of lute music compiled at the time of the instrument’s presumed completion, Michal Gondko showcases its expressive potential with a diverse programme, placing emphasis on high-quality yet largely neglected repertoire, most of which has not been recorded to date.

Marguerite of Austria (1480-1530) experienced a series of personal tragedies during the first three decades of her life. Despite her misfortunes, she has skillfully ruled The Netherlands for her nephew, Charles V. She is also remembered for her patronage over the arts.

The Archivio del Capitolo di San Lorenzo in Florence conserves a manuscript entitled Campione dei Beni which once served to record church properties. However, its parchment leaves originally belonged to a music manuscript compiled around 1420 in Florence. The musical notation was scraped off in order to make room for the new content. For a long time the remains of the musical notation were considered unreadable. It is only recently that scholars and scientists from the University of Hamburg have been able to render the original manuscript legible again by using the latest multispectral imaging technology.

Medieval Europeans often used various forms of the word ‘sweetness’ (Lat. dulcedo) to describe the beauty of a musical sound. ‘Sweet’ could apply to the sound of the human voice, but also to that of a musical instrument. When the ancestor of the ‘pianoforte’ was invented in the fifteenth century – some 250 years before Cristofori! –, it was baptized ‘sweet melody’ (Lat. dulce melos). Indeed, if there was a sound that medieval people were particularly fond of, it was that of plucked stringed instruments.