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GRAMOPHONE (09/2016)
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Glossa
GCD923901



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Reviewer: Fabrice Fitch

This engaging recital focuses on music from the first half of the 16th century known to have been performed by ‘high’ (loud) instruments, that is, brass and the louder winds. La Pifarescha are not to be confused with the similarly named Pifarro, even though their make-up is broadly similar.

They make a good noise, both in quality and (where appropriate) in quantity: Senfl’s In Maien has a lusty vigour, the din of assembled sackbuts, shawms and bagpipes complemented by the latter’s daredevil ornamentation; straight after, Isaac’s La Morra gets a sensitive reading on the softer winds and fiddles. The programme mixes secular vocal and dance music, both of them obvious repertories within which to choose.

Too obvious, perhaps? For one thing, there’s no lack of reports of contemporary wind ensembles of this period across Europe performing sacred music on their own, to the point of adding voices to an existing motet for the sake of added sonority. A selection of these would hardly have been out of place, given the recital’s title. That brings me to a related point, which will strike anyone who scans the track-list: it might as well have been called ‘Renaissance Greatest Hits’, all but a handful of pieces having been recorded nearly endlessly down the decades, in anthologies very like this one. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps, except that there’s little novelty of approach in these otherwise enjoyable interpretations. In this age when record labels seem to insist on a ‘USP’ for all but the most standard repertory, this seems a curious throwback.

 

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