Songs of Medieval Italy
anon.: | Adoramus te Christi (6 voices) Vergene madre pia (2 voices, 2 lutes) Quasi cedrus (2 voices, 6 voice chorus) Verzene benedeta (2 voices, lute) O Virgineta bella (2 voices, viella) Sicut pratum (2 voices, organistrum) Salve sancte pater (voice) Salve sponsa Dei (4 voices, organ) Salve Virgo rubens rosa (2 voices) Credo apostolorum (2 voices) Sanctus & Benedictus (2 voices) Qui nos fecit ex nichilo (4 voices) Gaude flore (3 voices, flute) Alleluia (6 voices, 2 flutes) De profundis (4 voices, 3 flutes) Cum autem verissem (2 voices, percussion) O crux fructus (4 voices, bagpipes, tambourine) Adoremus te Domine (6 voices) |
Acantus [Marco Ferrari (voice, flute, organistrum, bagpipes), Alessandra Fiori (voice), Gloria Moretti (voice), Stefano Pilati (voice), Guido Sodo (voice, lute), Fabio Tricomi (voice, lute, viella, flute, organistrum, tambourine)] & Miranda Aureli (organ), Roberta Binotti (chorus), Dina Cucchiaro (chorus), Frida Forlani (voice, chorus), Alida Oliva (flute), Cinzia Romeo (chorus), Tomomi Takamatsu (chorus), Silvia Testoni (voice, chorus) In our age of widespread literacy, it's easy to forget that the vast majority of music that survives from the Middle Ages was, merely by virtue of being written down, the dominion of an elite minority. On their debut CD, the Italian ensemble Acantus (the first group other than the Tallis Scholars to record for the Gimell label) approaches medieval Italian devotional song from the angle of common Italian folk music rather than of the erudite plainchant and polyphony preserved in most medieval sources.
Recorded in Eremo di Ronzano, Bologna, Italy [08/1997] "Medieval music at its most haunting and evocative" - Lindsay Kemp - Gramophone, September 2007 |
Gramophone Magazine
