The frottola was
a popular song-form in late 15th
Century and early 16th Century
Italy. The back of this CD gives a more
poetic description: "musical miniatures
that sing of human passion with nobility
and restraint". Its leading exponents
were Marcetto Cara and Bartolomeo Tromboncino
both represented here as is that most
versatile of masters Orlando Lassus.
In addition this CD allows us an opportunity
to hear music by other lesser known
and rarely heard composers.
In truth much of this
repertoire has been recorded quite often
and so I have been able to make comparisons
with two other easily available recordings
‘Occelino’ with London Pro Musica and
countertenor Kevin Smith on Hyperion
[66183] of 1983 and on Chandos recorded
by ‘Circa 1500’ in 1984 (CHAN 1110)
with that wonderful singer Emily van
Evera. .With all of these discs the
songs, which can appear to be a little
‘samey’, are divided up by instrumental
items. On the Hyperion disc they flow
seamlessly in and out between the songs.
I rather wish that on this new disc
there were more of these as the cornetto
playing of Bruce Dickey as it is so
superb, clean and beautiful almost vocal
is its effect. Nevertheless we often
hear instrumental arrangements of the
songs to break up the strophic structures.
An important ingredient
in art music of around 1500 was the
use of popular melodies often used as
reference points. These tunes make a
contrast with the words and it’s worth
spending a few moments reading over
the texts of these songs before hearing
them.
The poetic forms are
many and varied and include the ‘Barzelleta’,
‘Lauda’, ‘Capitolo’ and ‘Strambotto’
The composers of frottola liked to set
poems by serious poets or even by great
ones like Petrarch as Tromboncini does
with ‘Vergine Bella’ (which had also
been set 50 years before by Dufay),
which tastefully, practically ends this
recital .These texts often reflect the
prevailing humanistic viewpoint of the
times. It’s more than likely the composers
also sometimes wrote their own texts;
let me give you a taste of their philosophical
flavour.
Trombonico’s song ‘Per
dolor’ tells us "I weep for the
good there was in my precious life/That
with sweet and bitter ceaselessly invites
me to sigh/The memory graven in my heart
in exchange/Leads me to tears when I
think of what has been".
It seems to me that
the text and the beautifully wistful,
pained melody link us with a terrible
event in the composer’s life, that is
the murder of his wife whom he caught
‘in delecto flagrante’, just as the
more notorious Carlo Gesualdo was to
do 100 years later.
Some texts are distinctly
pained and poetical. ‘Per Figgir d’amor’
by Cara begins " Like an evil minded
tyrant, wondering up the hill and down
dale One day I was prey to great torment",
one is reminded here of the later texts
for madrigals.
Two of the pieces are
by performers Marco Beasley and Guido
Morini. Their style deliberately does
not stand apart from the early music
but it is obviously not entirely ancient.
Beasley’s ‘Tu dormi’ ends the disc and
its background is explained in the booklet
at the back. The music is based on a
traditional tune from Puglia and very
beautiful it is too. Which brings me
to the performers and performances themselves.
I like very much the
gentle, supple and clear tenor voice
of Marco Beasley but I do so wish that
sometimes he would vary his approach
his dynamics and be a little impassioned,
for example in the Lassus song with
its words "I cry and you do not
hear me/" and later "I have
called on your grace so much that I
have almost lost my voice". Only
for the last two lines does Beasley
raise the emotional level just a notch.
But then in the same repertoire Emily
van Evera and Kevin Smith sing the songs
mostly ‘straight’ without emotionally
colouring the words as you would say
in Schubert. You may be glad of that,
personally I feel cheated.
I have already mentioned
Bruce Dickey’s haunting contribution
but the other instrumentalists are equally
superb in ensemble skills, ornamentation
and balance created also by the very
natural recording.
The top-quality CD
booklet is attached to its cardboard
cover. It runs to 67 pages with texts
in four languages and sometimes notes
describing them, biographies of the
composers and background to the music
written by the ideally named Francesco
Pavan, with details about the instruments
and rehearsal photographs.
Gary Higginson
Marco Beasley (tenor); Guido Morini, organ; Stefano
Rocco, lute and renaissance guitar; Franco Pavan,
lute; Fabio accuro lute "a plettro";
Bruce Dickey, cornetto 
