Mudarra

Yasunori Imamura - Spanish Music for Vihuela from the Time of Charles V (2014) {Querstand VKJK 1318}
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© 2014 Querstand | VKJK 1318
Classical / Renaissance / Chamber Music / Vihuela

The vihuela, a small guitar-like instrument with six or seven courses of double strings, is less familiar than other members of the Renaissance lute family. Only four original examples exist, and modern players who have mastered the instrument's intricacies and the breadth of its repertoire are few. This release by Japanese player Yasunori Imamura should introduce many listeners to the vihuela's riches. The music here was mostly or all written between 1536 and 1557, during (and just after) the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Spain. The music includes some by the first composer to write down music for the vihuela, Luys Milán (ca. 1500-1561), and what's even more interesting is how the music stands at the beginning of a progressive trend that would last a century and a half: the use of ground basses to structure a larger composition.

Salvatore Foderà is a Neapolitan-born guitarist who completed his studies in 2011 and embarked on a professional career performing across Asia, Europe and the Americas, including a tour of Chile sponsored by the Swiss government. His interest in Flamenco music led him to visit the Fundación Cristina Heeren in Seville and study with flamenco guitarist Pedro Sierra.

This performance can be labeled Portuguese only loosely, since many of the pieces are sung in Spanish, or taken from Spanish manuscripts, or more properly Galician than Lusitanian. But hey! Who cares? Really artful recordings of any Iberian music of the 'Golden Age' are not sprouting from the cork trees even today. Male alto Gerard Lesne has seldom recorded pre-Baroque chansons, and it's a thrill to hear what he can do with them. Track 9, for instance, the Latin cantiga "Clamabat autem mulier" by Mudarra, takes Lesne from his usual alto register down seamlessly into his tenor chest voice. Wow! Not every counter-tenor can do that and still sound musical!

Various Artists - Guide des Instruments Anciens (A Guide to Period Instruments) (2009) {8CD Box Set Ricercar RIC100}
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© 2009 Ricercar / Outhere Music | RIC100
Classical / Early Music / Medieval / Renaissance / Baroque

A Guide to Period Instruments: 200 pages full colour book + 8 CDs. Languages: French/English/German. This Guide to Period Instruments endeavours to answer the questions that every lover of early music has about the instruments used in these periods of music history. Text and recorded excerpts describe the origin and the development of every musical instrument from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century and place them in their historical context. There is a completely new presentation booklet, over 200 pages long and abundantly illustrated, as well as eight CDs of recorded examples of the instruments that shed new light upon major periods of music history.

Jordi Savall & Hesperion XX - Espana Antigua - Spanish Secular Music c.1200-1700 (2001) {8CD Virgin Classics}
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© 1976-1986, 2001 Virgin Classics / EMI | 7243 5 61964 2 1
Classical / Early Music / World Music / Renaissance / Baroque / Medieval / Chamber Music

This box set comprises eight discs recorded by the remarkable Jordi Savall with his wife Montserrat Figueras and the wonderful Hespèrion XX. They span a period of ten or so years from 1976 were originally issued on LP by Virgin Classics. Since those days Savall’s performances have matured and grown in confidence but one can still easily recognize the brains behind the outfit and the sound-world he wanted to create. Later he moved to Auvidis Astrée and in more recent times has set up his own label - Alia Vox - where he really has been set loose. He has produced discs with superb documentation which have investigated many forgotten corners of medieval and Renaissance music which quite often we never even knew existed.