Chromatic Renaissance
EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble/James Weeks
rec. 2025, St. Batholomew’s Church, Orford, UK
Winter & Winter 910 293-2 [59]
Chromatic Renaissance is all about artistic innovation in the 16th century, a flowering of expressiveness and emotion in music that is considered to have seen its tentative origins with Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th century, but fully flourished around the start of the period explored in this recording from EXAUDI. I have been impressed by this ensemble’s releases in the past, including Gesualdo’s Madrigali a cinque voci, also on the Winter & Winter label (review), but they are also widely acclaimed for their skilled performances of contemporary repertoire, such as with their recording of Christopher Fox’s Catalogue Irraisoné (review).
James Weeks’ excellent booklet notes for this release cover the importing of harmonic discoveries from Ancient Greece, including texts on the three ‘genera’ of harmony: Diatonic, Chromatic and Enharmonic, the latter of which goes beyond semitones to include microtones. You can hear the effects of this in Vicente Lusitano’s Musica prisca caput, the unsettling tonal shifts in which may make your heart sink through the floor. Back in the day we would have thought this was caused by tape slipping or your cat interfering with the turntable, but these moments are real microtonal tour de force. One of the starkest chromatic pieces in this programme is Lusitano’s remarkable Heu me, Domine, which consists almost exclusively of ascending and descending chromatic scales. This and Vicente Lusitano’s striking Heu me, Domine go far beyond being technical experiments, though we can’t follow the word settings as sung texts are not included in the booklet.
Having reached this point in the programme and having one’s mind and internal organs shredded by tracks such as Soav’e dolc’ardore and Dolce mio ben, one realises the comparatively conventional music of Orlando di Lasso was there as much to prepare the ground as anything else, though having tuned in it pays to go back and hear his youthful harmonic daring. Lasso was in Naples and Rome in the early 1550s, and his first major work, the renowned Prophetiae Sibyllarum, sees him preceding Gesualdo as an early adopter of the kind of chromatic music he would have encountered in those cities at that time. Lasso knew and admired this new style, but his Anna, mihi dilecta, while full of delightful harmonic twists and ascending chromatic lines, steers clear of the enharmonic/microtonal shifts that give us palpitations elsewhere.
Further highlights in this programme include Cipriano de Rore’s complex and lamenting Calami sonum ferentes, and the chronological sequence shows where the younger generation of Luca Marenzio and Luzzasco Luzzaschi expand into selective but eloquently emotive use of now established effects. This is the kind of music you need to experience first-hand, and describing it in words barely touches on the parts of you it can affect. EXAUDI’s performances deliver the kind of shock to the system that some of these pieces must have had in their day – perhaps even more so, given this ensemble’s immersion in the demands of today’s composers and its sublime accuracy of intonation. These kinds of performance do not come without expert acuteness of hearing and years of experience.
With a superb recorded balance set in a gorgeous acoustic, this remarkable programme is a treat for both mind and ear. Be prepared, however, to have your comfortably diatonic rug pulled from beneath your feet. Nicola Vicentino’s microtonal music in particular is a real discovery, and you won’t be hearing it anywhere but here.
Dominy Clements
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Contents
Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594)
Timor et tremor
From: Prophetiae Sibyllarum
Carmina chromatico
I. Sibylla Persica [Orlando di Lasso]
IX. Sibylla Europæa
X. Sibylla Tiburtina
XI. Sibylla Erythræa
Prophetiae Sibyllarum: XII. Sibylla Agrippa
Vicente Lusitano (c. 1520-c.1561)
Heu me, Domine
Nicola Vicentino (1511-c.1576)
Hierusalem
Musica prisca caput
Soav’e dolc’ardore (Madrigal fragment)
Dolce mio ben (Madrigal fragment)
Madonna, il poco dolce (Madrigal fragment)
Poi che’l mio largo pianto
Orlando di Lasso
Anna, mihi dilecta
Cipriano de Rore (c.1515-1565)
Da le belle contrade d’oriente
Calami sonum ferentes
O sonno
Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)
O voi che sospirate
Solo e pensoso
Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c.1540-1607)
Quivi sospiri pianti
Itene mie querele
