Lassus, Palestrina: Motetti, Madrigali e Canzoni diminuiti

Lassus, Palestrina: Motetti, Madrigali e Canzoni diminuiti

Lassus, Palestrina: Motetti, Madrigali e Canzoni diminuiti
List Price: $18.99
Our Price: $14.88
You Save: $4.11 (22%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Listen soundtracks from this album



(Click here)
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store

CD Details

Composer: Giovanni Battista Bovicelli
Composer: Bartolome de Selma y Salaverde
Composer: Francesco Rognoni
Composer: Christian Erbach
Composer: Orlande de Lassus
Composer: Giovanni Bassano
Composer: Peter [composer] Philips
Composer: John Dowland
Composer: Emanuel Adriaenssen
Composer: Giovanni Antonio Terzi
Performer: Ensemble la Fenice
Performer: Jean-Marc Aymes
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2007-09-04
Music Label: Ricercar
Soundtracks:
  1. Io son ferito - Giovanni Palestrina
  2. Vestiva i colli - Giovanni Palestrina
  3. Io son ferito - Giovanni Palestrina
  4. Io son ferito - Giovanni Palestrina
  5. Haec quae ter triplici - Orlando De Lassus
  6. Susanne un jour - Orlando De Lassus
  7. Divisions on 'Suzanne un jour' - Francesco Rognoni Taeggio
  8. Susanne un jour - Orlando De Lassus
  9. Bon jour mon coeur - Orlando De Lassus
  10. Fitzwilliam Virginal Bk: Bon Jour Mon Coeur di Orlando - Peter Philips
  11. Lachrimae or Seaven Teares: M. Bucton his Galiard - John Dowland
  12. Et d'ou venez vous, madame Lucette - Orlando De Lassus
  13. Pulchra es amica mea - Giovanni Palestrina
  14. Vestiva i colli - Giovanni Palestrina
  15. Pulchra es amica mea - Giovanni Palestrina

Music reviews of Lassus, Palestrina: Motetti, Madrigali e Canzoni diminuiti

Music Review: Florid Virtuosity
Rating: 4 Stars

Pier Luigi de Palestrina and Orlando Lassus died the same year, 1594, and both would be rolling in their marble tombs to hear that anyone supposes this music is theirs. Palestrina in Rome and Lassus in Germany were the supreme old guard of the austere, intellectual polyphony of the Renaissance. Palestrina in particular was esteemed by the purists of the Counterreformation for his simplicity and devotion to the clearest declamation of text. He wrote next to nothing for instruments, not even organ or harpsichord in support of his choral music. So what's going on here?

The fifteen pieces on this CD come chiefly from ornamentation manuals by composers of the next generation - Bovicelli, De Selma, Rognoni, Bassano, and others - who appropriated motets and madrigals by the old masters to be used as examples of their own surperior taste and skill. This, oh listeners, is the precise moment of musical history when the Renaissance morphed into the Baroque, literally writing over the flowing profundity of one with the florid exuberance of the other.

Modern listeners often ask how musicologists and performers can talk about authenticity of technique and style when there are of course no recordings of music from the 16th or 17th Centuries. One way to know is to read the manuals! There were instructional books in print for instrumentalists - especially cornettists and viola da gambists - on how to tongue, how to phrase, and especially how to improvise ornamentation. Pages and pages of precise examples of arpeggiated cadences and intervals fill the pages of Ganassi for recorder flutes), Ortiz for gambists, and the current forgottem masters for musicians at large.

La Fenice has presented us with a recital of these exercises in taste and virtuosity. Modern ears, I think, will hear more of the latter than the former. These little pieces are as excessive, musically, as the bows and ribbons on an ante-bellum belle's bonnet. But they're a lot of fun, both to play and to hear when played by a world-class virtuoso like Jean Tubery, the heart of La Fenice. Tubery's instruments are the cornetto, the mute cornetto, and the recorder, all of which respond to the player's tongue and fingers flying over 32nd and 64th notes fast enough to make a Pentium 4 computer chip sqeak for help. Tubery's cornetto is not a brass instrument. It's a tapered wooden tube about the size and shape of an antelope horn, with seven finger holes and a tiny cup moutpiece. The cornetto was the show-off virtuoso instrument of the early Baroque, to be heard at its most eloquent in the music of Gabrieli, Monteverdi, and Schuetz. In this performance, Tubery is supported by a harpist, a lutenist, and a keyboardist, all very fine players capable of taking their licks at the fastball ornamental figures. They are joined, unfortunately, on two of the Lassus-based exercises by Francois Fauche, a capable bass singer who just can't turn the trick on these hyper-gymnastic musical figures. Those two tracks cry out to be skipped; that's why I've given the CD only four stars. This isn't great music in itself. It wasn't intended to be performance material at all. But Tubery's playing is so spectacular that any time he picks up his horn, I'm ready to listen.

Description of Lassus, Palestrina: Motetti, Madrigali e Canzoni diminuiti

All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Classical CDs

Music Genres
Bestsellers in Classical CDs
Winterscapes ImageWinterscapes
by London Philharmonic
Prophetic Voice; Published: 2000-07; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops: $6.99
The Queen, the Bear, & the Bumblebee ImageThe Queen, the Bear, & the Bumblebee
by Dini Petty
Children's Group; Published: 2001-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.38
Price in other shops: $13.98
Beethoven Lives Upstairs Cdr ImageClassical Kids - Beethoven Lives Upstairs Cdr
Release date: 2000-04-05; Music CD
Best price: $24.98
Tchaikovsky (Life and Works (Naxos)) ImageTchaikovsky (Life and Works (Naxos))
by Malcolm Sinclair, Jeremy Siepmann
Naxos; Published: 2003-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $35.99
Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS] ImageJose Carreras - Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS]
Sling Shot; Release date: 2000-04-18; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops: $9.99
Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS] ImageTchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS]
Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-09-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.89
Price in other shops: $29.95
Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS] ImageRambert Dance Company - Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS]
Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-10-28; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops: $29.95
Winter Music: Composing the North ImageWinter Music: Composing the North
by John Luther Adams
Wesleyan; Published: 2004-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.23
Price in other shops: $25.95
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] ImagePuccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]
Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops: $29.95
Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] ImageVerdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]
Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops: $29.95
Similar CDs
Dialoghi Venetiani ImageDialoghi Venetiani
Release date: 2007-09-04; Music CD
Best price: $14.98
Price in other shops: $17.49
Compare prices and find music notes for more than one million Music CD titles