"While he was painting Mona Lisa he engaged
musicians who played and continually jested and so he drew forth
that smile so pleasing.." So wrote Giorgio Vasari in his
Lives of the Artists in 1550 and despite Vasaris questionable
attributions and chronologies it is true that Leonardo himself
once wrote that "the painters house is accompanied by music
or readings." And so this disc insinuatingly amplifies
these teasing references by giving us a conspectus of contemporary
secular music such as may, conjecturally, have been heard by
Leonardo. Its an attractive pretext anyway. Concordias four
viols are joined by lute, wind and a percussionist as well as
cornett, shawm, bagpipes and other Renaissance impedimenta.
Musically Northern European sources predominate because the
German and Flemish schools were especially active and influential
in Italy Josquin himself lived, as did Leonardo, in Milan whilst
Isaac spent many years in Florence.
There are a number of rumbustious folk and
courtly dances, many of whose composers are now lost to us,
not least the opening Saltarello and the catchy lute
pieces, principally a Pavane and Galliard. There is an extravagant
bagpipe excursion in the anonymous setting of Petits vriens,
triumphantly exciting. The beautiful cornett led Hor
oires un chanzon should not be overlooked; its sonorities
are exquisitely drawn and the viols own eloquence can best be
felt in the pieces by Josquin and Japart in performances of
affirmatory motion and real depth. There is another aspect to
this recital and that is the singing of the counter-tenor Robin
Blaze. He has a nicely equalized voice, with great reserves
of tonal purity; light, clear, well layered, flexible and seldom
indulging in over expressive singing. Instead he mines the text
in the interest of subtlety of inflection and nuance and like
another young counter-tenor, William Purefoy, he has the gifts
of simplicity, directness and unforced control. He begins Comperes
Le grant desir unaccompanied and is then joined successively
by lute, viol ensemble and percussion; the varied instrumental
forces, their delayed introduction and insouciant development
and Blazes own spirited musicality are all vibrant and joyous
aspects of this and other songs. He takes Busnois Je ne fay
plus at a steady but slow tempo, sustaining the line with
varieties of little inflective devices, if very occasionally
tempting the curve of the line to break. His floated high voice
in Latura tu is impressive whilst his runs here are faultless
and never preeningly self congratulatory. His lower voice is
well supported and sustained; no breaks in register. Equally
impressive is his expansive singing of Se mai per maraveglia
note his hardening tone at the words "inganno"
(sin) and "danno" (damnation). This is a singer of
tonal beauty and imagination. Mark Levy directs Concordia (superbly)
and wrote the booklet notes. Something of a triumph.
Jonathan Woolf
Robin Blaze, counter-tenor
