Willaert: Vecchie letrose

RICERCAR could not miss Willaert’s anniversary… This recording of Willaert’s secular repertoire gives us a very different vision of his work, compared to his religious music well illustrated by the Vespro della Beata Vergine recording (RIC325).

Here, we can appreciate a musician singing love with sweetness, describing pleasures of the life with a little smile, even sometimes with a bit of salacity. Recorded by Romanesque in 1994, this CD can be listened to with a lot of pleasure. No competition in the market for this recording!

Beautifully performed, recorded and presented survey of 14th Century Court music.

Violist Marianne Muller follows up the critically acclaimed Marin Marais CD of 2007.

A must for early music fans.

Played according to Ganassi’s treatises by Pierre Boragno recorder, Marianne Muller viola, Massimo Moscardo luto, François Saint Yves organ & harpsichord.

The influence of the Book of the Courtier pushed the aristocracy of Europe to play musical instruments. “One should know how to play, to improvise with above all easiness for his friends or his court.” Sylvestro Ganassi, probrably trombonist in Venise, answered perfectly this social need with three treatises related to the art of improvisation and diminutions : Fontegara (1535), Regola Rubertina (1542), la Lettione seconda (1543).

Pierre Boragno has studied them. They are full of indications helping the improvisation process, the diminution of all popular tunes… Together with Marianne Muller, Massimo Moscardo and François Saint Yves, they applied these propositions of diminutions, appropriate them to put forward this fascinating program which gives the intimate and virtuose atmosphere of XVIth European Courts.