Rare Italian Madrigals Composers from the upper drawer number several well-known names (music quality increasing a lot over the century), among them principally Giaches de Wert (1535-1596), Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), and, not least, Luca Marenzio (1553-1599), to whom the present CD is entirely devoted. In his rather short lifespan, he managed to write about 500 madrigals between 1580 and 1599. In those two decades, his music developed immensely, reaching it's climax in the last ten years of his life. Though continuing to satisfy his great popular following with loads of small, lighthearted songs, Marenzio excelled also in writing ambitious madrigal cycles, of which two are recorded here: Baci soavi e cari (five 6-part madrigals describing several aspects of kissing) and, maybe his magnum opus, Capitolo - Se quel dolor (ten 6-part madrigals delving into one of the period's favourite subjects: melancholia).

Conducted by The Sixteen’s Associate Conductor, Eamonn Dougan, this release is the fourth volume in this critically acclaimed series. This installment explores the music of Italian composers who lived and worked within the Polish court during Sigismund III Vasa’s reign. When Sigismund III began to reorganize his music ensembles in 1594, he modeled his new structure after the chapels of Rome, and thus brought in several highly esteemed Italian musicians. Some of these notable musicians included Luca Marenzio, Asprillo Pacelli, and Vincenzo Bertolusi. The arrival of these composers heralded a new age of sacred Polish music. Most notable on this release is Marenzio’s magnificent Missa super Iniquos odio habui. While the Kyria and Gloria movements remained, the other parts of the Mass went missing after World War II, and have only been rediscovered since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is the world premiere recording of the Mass in its entirety.

Kronborg is Denmark's most famous castle - the 'Elsinore' of Shakespeare - and within it's walls, sweet music. Kings Christian III, Frederik II and Christian IV harvested the bounty of Europe's musical wealth and crowned their lavish courts with song. In this majestic 8-CD set by Bo Holten and Musica Ficta are lute songs by Dowland, motets of Schutz, and world-premiere recordings of works by Palestrina, de Wert and Vecchi. These are no longer only echoes of a prosperous age, but now Denmark's golden musical past, regained anew. During its residency at Kronborg in 2021–2024, Musica Ficta presented this repertoire in a concert series in the castle’s Ballroom; the recordings gathered here were made separately, in dedicated sessions. Musica Ficta focused on works from the castle’s heyday, when there was a prosperous musical life there. This release marks a comprehensive celebration of 100 years of Danish musical life at Kronborg, Copenhagen and beyond, featuring music by: Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) · John Dowland (1563–1626) · Hans Nielsen (c. 1580–1626) · Truid Aagesen (fl. 1593–1625) · Mogens Pedersøn (c. 1583–1623) · Hans Brachrogge (c. 1590–c. 1638) · Luca Marenzio (1553–1599) · John Bennet (c. 1575–1614) · Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623) · John Wilbye (1574–1638) · Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621) · Johann Grabbe (1585–1655) · Mattheus le Maistre (c. 1505–1577) · Pierre Sandrin (c. 1490–after 1561) · Giaches de Wert (1535–1596) · Josquin Baston (c. 1515–c. 1576) · Jan Tollius (c. 1550–c. 1620) · Gregorius Trehou (c. 1540–1619) · Jacques Arcadelt (1507–1568) · Melchior Borchgrevinck (c. 1570–1632) · Nicolas Gistou (d. 1609) · Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) · Leone Leoni (c. 1560–1627) · Agostino Agresta (fl. 1600–1617) · Girolamo Casati (c. 1590–after 1657) · Simone Molinaro (c. 1570–1636) · Marsilio Santini (fl. c. 1600) · Curtio Valcampi (fl. 1600–1610) · Ruggiero Giovannelli (c. 1560–1625) · Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594) · Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554–1612) · Antonio Mortaro (c. 1575–c. 1620) · Giovanni Croce (1557–1609) · Orazio Vecchi (1550–1605) · Leonhard Lechner (c. 1553–1606) · Guillaume Costeley (c. 1530–1606) · Vincenzo Ruffo (c. 1508–1587) · Gregor Lange (c. 1540–1587) · Arnold de Fine (c. 1530–1586) · Jørgen Presten (d. 1553) · Severin Tham (fl. c. 1540–1560) · Andreas Meier (fl. 1559)

The production by the Anonima Frottolisti ensemble, which needs no introduction thanks to it's specialisation in the interpretation of medieval and Renaissance music, focuses in this work on the theme of the female figure that has been handed down to us since the fifteenth century. Cecilia represents a life story that is entirely feminine: "The lament and pity, the despair, the condition of women and their redemption," jealousy, the renunciation of nobles and knights for the defense of one's love and dignity, the "Comedy," that is, the theatrical representation of reality. The song has ancient roots in Western music, from the first monodic forms of the 15th century in France, where the protagonist is Pernette, also present in Italy in the Aosta Valley tradition at the end of the 19th century, or in the case of Jeannette, still used in children's stories in French-speaking areas, or in the fifteenth-century example La belle se sied by Guillaume Dufay and the three-voice version by Josquin Desprez, or in the narrative song of the oral tradition of the "three sisters/ladies who come from Lyon," as well as in the sacred sphere, influencing the composition of the Missa la Belle se sied in Ms. 1377 from Trento, or the Missa La Belle se sied composed by Mambriano de Orto and printed by Petrucci in 1505. The disruptive force of this tradition, that is, the traces that branched out from it starting from the European Middle Ages, are still evident and inherent in every musical and literary sphere.

Florence, May 2nd, 1589: on occasion of the wedding of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I and Christina of Lorraine an impressive celebration apparatus was put up to display the magnificence of the Medici household. Behind this official event lay an ambitious project which involved an incredible team of the most important poets and musicians of the time, such as Cristofano Malvezzi, Luca Marenzio, Giulio Caccini, Jacopo Peri, Emilio De’ Cavalieri as well as Count Giovanni De’ Bardi, who was engaged to compose the Intermedi for Girolamo Bargagli’s play La Pellegrina. Renaissance intermediums were sumptuous musical interludes inserted between the acts of a theatrical show on allegorical and moral themes with eclectic references to classical mythology. They are considered as the forerunners of musical opera. The spectacular show, which was performed using a complex stage machinery set up in Palazzo Pitti’s Boboli gardens, was an immediate success, so much that the intermediums were performed in the days to follow during another two plays. The Six intermediums in La Pellegrina provide for choral madrigals, double and triple choirs, solo accompanied numbers and instrumental pieces, inserted into the impressive and sumptuous staging by Bernando Buontalenti. 430 years later, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in collaboration with Galleria Degli Uffizi produces the first staging in modern times of the Intermedi della Pellegrina through an itinerant show in Palazzo Pitti’s Boboli Gardens. Stage director Valentino Villa’s approach was to “attempt at an ironic historical reconstruction, [where] imageries blur together, classical mythology is grafted onto contemporary iconography”. Conductor Federico Maria Sardelli leads Modo Antiquo and Chorus Master Alberto Allegrezza is at the head of Coro Ricercare Ensemble and Compagnia Dramatodìa.

With this "colourful" selection of pieces, we intend to give an impression of the diverse repertoire collected in the Turin Tablature. The motets and liturgical works were most likely intended for performance in church, whereas dances and madrigals were intended more for secular settings: at festivals, celebrations, and for domestic music-making. Toccatas and ricercars could be played in both ecclesiastical and secular settings. [In light of the wide variety of purposes of this repetoire, we utilized a wide variety of instruments.] Thus, in addition to the Marx-Gunzer organ, three other stringed keyboard instruments were used: a clavicytherium in southern German design from the 17th century, a virginal after Michael Praetorius (1619), and a harpsichord of a seventeenthcentury Italian design.

Chromatics is a word derived from the Greek noun meaning color. During the Renaissance, new music was composed in the Western world, opening up a palette of (timbral) colors for the first time. Before the Renaissance, music (in Gregorian chant) existed only to convey the word, not to make an appearance itself; this changed completely after the 15th century. Music, like painting, exploded into new forms and colors, and the era of the modern age was ushered in. Strange harmonies, mysterious voices - tones of passion and desire, of terror and fear, of the confusion of the sublime or of divine apparition... This is the world of musical colors that opened up in the age of the Chromatic Renaissance, giving rise to a music that is daring, adventurous and timelessly modern.

Rome to Vilnius is a new investigative insight into the cultural heritage of Lithuania: the music at he Vasa Court in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It reflects the influence of the greatest masters of the Roman polyphonic school in the musical world of Poland and Lithuania and shows the Vasa Court as a place of advanced music-making in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. At the end of the 16th century, during the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund III Vasa was the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Each year he spent a few months in Vilnius, and it was reported that he always travelled with his musicians. Sigismund III, who was himself a musician and a lover of music, was not happy with the standard of the music in the Royal Chapel, and decided to invite Italian musicians to improve the musical life of his court. Italy was the main influence in music in Europe at that time, not only because of the different styles that originated there (polyphony, poly-choral music, monody, opera, etc), but also because of the achievements of the composers who wrote in these styles. We can distinguish clearly two main schools of music in Italy: the Venetian school, created by Adrian Willaert, with the new poly-choral style that was performed in the Basilica of San Marco; and the polyphonic Roman school of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, one of the most influential musicians of the 16th century, and one of the great masters of the art of polyphony of all time. Sigismund III decided to hire the best musicians from Rome, and from 1595 to 1649 all the Kapellmeisters at the Vasa Court in Poland and Lithuania were Italians. Most of them were not only prominent members of the Roman school, but also former pupils of Palestrina. The composers represented on this recording were among them, with the exception of Giovanni Battista Cocciola, who was kapellmeister at the Vilnius court under Lew Sapieha. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Vilnius court was presided over by Lew Sapieha (Leonas Sapiega), Sigismund III Vasa's crown chancellor (the highest official in the country after the King himself). Sapieha was an expert in music and was entrusted with the position of administrator of the Royal Chapel. He had his own chapel attached to his residence in Vilnius. The 'Sapieha' album is a compilation of pieces with a sacral function. It does not mention the compiler or the composers but is a testimony to the vitality of the musical culture in Lithuania in the first half of the 17th century. Other information: - Recorded October 2023, Vilnius - Booklet in English contains liner notes by the director, as well as his biography and one of the ensemble. - Rome to Vilnius is a new investigative insight into the cultural heritage of Lithuania: the music at the Vasa Court in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It reflects the influence of the greatest masters of the Roman polyphonic school in the musical world of Poland and Lithuania, and shows the Vasa Court as a place of advanced music-making in 16th and 17th-century Europe. At the end of the 16th century, during the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund III was the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Sigismund III, who was himself a musician and a lover of music, was not happy with the standard of the music in the Royal Chapel, and he decided to invite Italian musicians to improve the musical life of his court. He hired the best musicians from Rome, and from 1595 to 1649 all the Kapellmeisters at the Vasa Court in Poland and Lithuania were Italians. Most of them were not only prominent members of the Roman school, but also former pupils of Palestrina. - The composers presented on this new recording include Palestrina (presumably 1525-1594), Merula (1595-1665), Marenzio (1553 or 1554-1599), Cato (after 1560 until after 1618), Pacelli (ca. 1570- 1623), Anerio (1560-1614), Cocciola (2nd half 16th century until after 1625) and Pekiel after 1600 until ca. 1670). - Beautiful performances by Lithuanian soloists, including Renata Dubinskaite (mezzo-soprano), whose previous recording for Brilliant Classics with works by Barbara Strozzi (BC 96436) received 5 star reviews in the international press. The instrumental group includes cornetto, sackbut and organ.