Metcalf / Turner / Thomas / Campbell / Davies - Paths of Song - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In 16th century Italy was by far the largest exporter of music. But some Italians preferred to stay at home big names like Alessandro Scarlatti and Albinoni, but also delightful incogniti such as Leonardo Leo, Nicolo Fiorenza, Giovanni Antonio Canuti or Francesco Mancini. They developed a hyper-personal style which was impervious to international fashion, and (especially in the South) characterized by extravagance and a distinct couleur locale. Their works are virtually unknown, but as local archives are shedding their treasures through digitization projects, more and more gems are finding their ways to recordings such as the present one. There is no better advocate for this sun-drenched repertoire than the Antwerp ensemble RedHerring.

To Renaissance court of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, arrived an eccentric thirty year old man from Florence. It was 1482. He was a mathematician, anatomist, philosopher, constructor, astronomer... But not many people know, that he was also a musician. One of his 16th century biographers wrote, that the Sforzas hired Leonardo not as a painter nor architect, but - what might surprise us - as a musician and a party organizer of impeccable manners. Leonardo called music a worse sister of painting, because a painting lasts forever and music has no material form. It exists only in the moment of the performance, moreover - it dies in the moment of the birth. That's why music couldn't stand comparison to architecture or sculpture. None of Leonardo's musical compositions survived, but apart from many drawings and fragments of treatises, in his notebooks there are also rebuses and... musical riddles, all written in mirror reflection. In at least 18 riddles, Leonardo da Vinci used musical notation. These musical InchgamesInch were not only notes, but they created sentences, because according to solmisation, a method created by Guido of Arezzo, every note has it's own name - 'ut' (later replaced by a much easier to pronounce 'do'), 're', 'mi', 'fa', 'sol', 'la', 'si'. When put into shape, with decoded meaning of the text, they turn out to be incredibly powerful, hypnotic and nostalgic melodies. The present presents music inspired by Da Vinci's enigmas.

Various Artists - Canticum Canticorum (Song of Songs) / Various [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/21/2002