Petre

This 29CD set provides a superb introduction to this master of the Barock. He is often suffers in comparison to Bach, Handel and Vivaldi mainly because it is so difficult to know where to start with such a vast body of work. This Brilliant Classics box set makes the Telemann experience all the more enjoyable by making this selection and providing a wonderful window into the world of this great composer.

Peter Philips was, after William Byrd, the most published English composer of the Elizabethan-Jacobean Age. He was also, in his day, the best-known English composer on the European mainland but his absence from his homeland after the age of about twenty-one means that he remains relatively neglected at home. Born in 1560 or 1561, he trained as a choirboy at St Paul’s Cathedral in London and may have studied keyboard playing with Byrd. In 1582 he fled England to avoid persecution as a Roman Catholic, making his way to Rome. In 1585 he joined the entourage of another Roman Catholic refugee, Sir Thomas Paget, travelling with him through Northern Europe for the next five years, eventually settling in Antwerp in 1591. In 1593 he was accused of plotting against Elizabeth I and arrested, but was eventually exonerated. He joined the court chapel of Archduke Albert, Viceroy of The Netherlands, as organist in 1597 and remained there until his death in 1628.

Sophie Yates follows her French and Iberian collections (11/93 and 11/94) with an English one, an overview of the period that ended in the 1620s after the death of Byrd, its central figure, Gibbons and Bull, though Tomkins delayed the stylistic rigor mortis for another 30 years. The anonymous My Lady Carey's Dompe and Aston's Hornepype provide quasi-improvisational precursors (though they are not so placed in the programme) of the ubiquitous divisions upon whatever, including Byrd's or Aston's Ground – he looked both backwards to Aston and sideways to Dowland and Harding in writing divisions on their works.

2019 will see the 500th commemoration of the death of one of the greatest geniuses humanity has produced: Leonardo da Vinci, scientist, inventor, painter – and musician. Doulce Mémoire, having devoted themselves to Renaissance music for the past 30 years, have decided to pay homage to Leonardo. Their founder-director, Denis Raisin Dadre, an eminent specialist in the music of the period and a great lover of pictorial art, has devised an original programme: ‘Rather than just make music from the time of Leonardo, I’ve taken my cue from the paintings themselves. I’ve worked on what could be the hidden music of these pictures, what musical pieces might be suggested by them….’ He chose around fifteen paintings, many of which are now in the Louvre: The Baptism of Christ, The Virgin of the Rocks, Portrait of Isabella d’Este, Portrait of an Unknown Woman (La belle ferronnière), Saint Anne, St John the Baptist… and of course La Gioconda. He then matched them with works by Jacob Obrecht (1457-1505), Josquin Desprez (1450-1521), laude for the Annunciation. There are also some frotolle, and songs to texts by Petrarch accompanied by the lira da braccio, an instrument Leonardo played himself. This recording comes with a handsome booklet, including reproductions of the pictures by Leonardo, some in detail, giving an intimate insight into them; there is also a text by Denis Raisin Dadre explaining his selection.

William Byrd’s keyboard music has always stood in the shadow of his vocal compositions. Drawing simultaneously on English and Italian Renaissance traditions, Byrd created a remarkable musical language that was flexible and entirely refined keyboard instruments of his time. Both keyboard instruments used on this recording are original pieces.

The Freiburger Barockorchester, directed from Gottfried von der Goltz’s violin, released a brand new recording of Telemann’s rare Passion, entitled Seliges Erwägen (Contemplative Meditations). More than just setting to music the story of the passion of Christ, such as Bach did, we hear in this score a succession of meditations. If we know little about its genesis, it is acknowledged that the success of this work was considerable, even more than that of his Passion after Brockes or his oratorio The Death of Jesus. The clear diction and the transparency of the voices in the chorals perfectly convey the dramatic expression, typical of these sacred works.