Acclaimed for its ‘rhythmic verve, spontaneity and riot of splendid colors’ (Pizzicato magazine on Giovanni Picchi’s Canzoni da Sonar con ogni sorte d’istromenti), Concerto Scirocco now immerses itself in the English musical scene of the Elizabethan era, and more especially the genres of the masque and the fantasia.

Great cultural ferment swept through England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The courts invested huge sums of money in the production of ‘masques’, entertainments combining music, dance, theatre and stage design in a sumptuous display of grandeur. At the same time, the first public playhouses were founded in the suburban districts of London: The Theatre, the Red Lion, the Rose, the Swan, and in 1599 Shakespeare’s Globe. Music played a key role in accompanying this eccentric burst of cultural vitality: the asymmetrical fantasias of John Hilton, the monumental canzonas and pavanes of William Brade, the impudent, rhetorical masques of Robert Johnson and others, reveal an era of unparalleled musical invention and exploration.