Ricordanze: a record of love
Kristiina Watt (lute), Alison Kinder (bass viol), Claire Williams (organ)
Musica Secreta/Laurie Stras
rec. 8–12 January 2024, Beaulieu Abbey Church, Beaulieu, UK; 12 December 2024 St Andrew’s, Yetminster, UK
Lucky Music LCKY005 [101]

Ricordanze: a record of love is Musica Secreta’s eleventh album, with previous releases such as Motets by Alessandro Grandi (review), their album Sacred Hearts, Secret Music (review) and more recently From Darkness into Light with the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Antoine Brumel (review) giving a sample of their productions to date. This release is nicely produced with plenty of annotation and including sung texts in their original versions and with English translations.   

Ricordanze: a record of love perfectly suits Musica Secreta’s studies of female music making in its exploration of the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript, the only known surviving record of sixteenth-century music for convents. This manuscript covers the nuns’ surprising range of music-making, from chants used in worship to entire masses and everything in between, including compact motets and lute songs.

The first of the two complete masses recorded here is the three-voice Messa sopra Je le lerray, which is based a French chanson whose themes of violence and false imprisonment are thought to be an expression of the nuns’ incarceration during the 1530 Siege of Florence. The texts are written from the female point of view and the whole work has a defiant edge to its message, the Gloria quoting a motet by Phillipe Verdelot, Recordare, Domine, that pleads for an end to war and pestilence. While we’re on the subject of the complete masses, the four-voice Messa sopra Recordare Virgo Mater was sung by the nuns every 16 March in a tradition that lasted over 150 years in thanks for being spared death and serious injuries when in March 1540 the church was damaged by a lightning strike. The principal influence for the music in this mass seems to be that of Josquin des Prez, or at the very least he can serve as a reference point for its stylistic character.

There are pleasant moments of contrast in the programme with songs in Italian subtly accompanied in this recording with a lute. These evoke madrigals of the period that were highly fashionable amongst the Florentine nobility of the day. Other short pieces were designated for use during moments in which the nuns gathered to sing before the Crucifix or in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The function of reciting the Divine Office entailed singing eight services throughout the day and night, commonly using simple chants, but being expanded on high feasts with worshipful polyphony.

Taken out of their context of musical highlights amidst a life of silence and purposeful ritual, it might seem a bit strange to be hearing these pieces all together in an entire double-album, and with the limited contrast of all female voices it’s probably best to be a bit selective rather than take this extensive programme in a single sitting. With a good recording and hardly any edgy moments in fine performances this is a unique and fascinating release that brings to life an unfamiliar corner of religious music making during the Renaissance.

Dominy Clements   

Other review: Johan van Veen (December 2025)

Contents:
Ecce quam bonum
In illo tempore: vidit Jesus
Je le lerray puisqu’il me bat
Messa sopra Je le lerray
Da pacem Domine
Salve sancte pater
O crux, splendidior
Non è alcun di gloria degno
Vergine bella che di sol vestita
Giesù benign’ et pio
Adoramus te Christe
Kyrie eleison [Litaniæ breves]
Sancta Maria, letaniæ della Madonna
Adoramus te Christe / Domine Jesu Christe
Sancta Dei genitrix
Messa sopra Recordare Virgo Mater 
Vespers psalms, Common of Virgins and the Blessed Virgin Mary
Dixit Dominus
Laudate pueri
Lætatus sum
Nisi Dominus
Lauda Jerusalem
Magnificat ottavo tono
Ave regina cælorum