HIS MAJESTYS SAGBUTTS & CORNETTS, are pleased to announce their latest release on their signature label, SFZ Music, following the acclaimed 2008 release of music by Giovanni Battista Grillo and the release this year of Buccaneer, a tale of musical piracy. For this groundbreaking recording of canzonas for ogni sorte di stromenti ('all sorts of instruments') by diversi eccellentissimi musici ('various most excellent composers'), collected by the Venetian publisher Alessandro Raverii in 1608, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts have collaborated with the Purcell Quartet and the lute consort Chordophony to explore the kaleidoscopic possibilities of early 17th-century instrumentation. Some of the highlights of the CD include the rarely heard sonority of a consort of eight sagbutts; the premiere recording of a matched consort of lutes; wonderful cori spezzati dialogue effects between the wind and string groups; and the joy and spontaneity of improvised ornamentation. Including a number of canzonas by Giovanni Gabrieli, this CD represents an important milestone on His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts' epic project to record the complete oeuvre of the master.This recording also offers a wonderful opportunity to hear the music of Gabrieli's contemporaries in the field of instrumental composition:Antegnati, Chilese, Frescobaldi, Grillo, Guami, Lappi, Luzzaschi, Maschera, Massaino and Merulo.
"This consort is the pre-eminent group of its kind" Classic FM
"These players demonstrate perfectly how a balance of scholarship and expert period performance can restore familiar music to such radiant good health that we wondered how it ever survived before." BBC
February 2010
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“Only in rare cases does the published score indicate the instruments to be used, and this has given these experienced performers an opportunity to construct a varied sonic landscape. Guami's eight-voiced canzona (track 2), for example, is treated to a glittering combination of stringed and wind instruments, all perfectly balanced.”
The Independent on Sunday
7th February 2010
“From the duelling cornetts in Gabrieli's Canzon Seconda, to the prim lute choir dialogue of Lappi's Canzon La Negrona and Grillo's scintillating Capriccio à 4 for strings and harpsichord, this is an attractive, highly varied programme.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
