Even the other great cultural leaderships of Europe know in this period a moment of creativeness and renewal. It is thanks to periods like this that, as said Emperor Adrian in Marguerite Yourcenar’s book, we can build a barn of beauty and wisdom for future moral and spiritual famine. From a musical point of view, instrumental , music  for organ is in a moment of great unrest, innovation and impulse. Gregorian chant is still the reference point in order to take thematic material as a base for composition. However new trends arrive in that settled process, like the tablature for keyboard and the working-out of sacred and profane vocal compositions, the free creation. The programme of this CD was conceived in order to present and compare all those different trends and attitudes: the organ was built by Cesare Catarinozzi (1660-1743), probably in 1695 for the Church of Santa Scolastica’s Abbey in Subiaco and now placed in Novalesa’s Abbey in Susa (Turin), restored in 2006 by Glauco Ghilardi.

Prelude Sur Chacun ton by Pierre Attaignant opens our anthology: the style is that of solemn occasions, the component technique is free and completely gathered from the improvisation of the keyboard. Three are the compositions by Girolamo Cavazzoni, one Canzona on the famous and popular French theme Il est bel et bon and two liturgical hymns: Ave Maris Stella and Christe Redemptor Omnium. Two compositions by Heinrich Isaac and from the famous organist Paul Hofhaimer move us beyond the Alps: one Ricercare of a free counterpoint composition and one Recordare in two parts on a Gregorian theme with three voices. Plus ne regres by Marco Antonio Cavazzoni, father of Girolamo, is still a tablature of a vocal chanson, evidence of the influence and exchanges between neighbouring countries. The Ricercare by Giulio Segni is instead an interesting attempt in which writing deals with instrumental polyphony. As Pierre Attaignant, even Andrea Antico is engraver of the collection from which arrive Frottole by Bartolomeo Trombonicino and Marchetto Cara. Virgine bella che di sol vestita, based on a text by Petrarch, is a masterpiece of grace and spirituality, in spite of the profane destination of the collection, almost a remaining of Amor Cortese. The great circulation of Italian vocal music is underlined by the madrigal O passi sparsi by Sebastiano Festa in the tablature of Lublino, Poland. Even if It is a simple verse piece, heir of the ancient madrigal and ancestor of the baroque vocal song, the tablature by Jan z Lublina evokes the sweet melancholy of contemporary poetry on loving theme. A big geographical and temporal jump moves us in Tudor’s time, where we can listen to two compositions, himns on Gregorian chant with technique concern: Veni Redemptor by John Redford, in which liturgical melody is counterpointed with two other voices and Ex More Docti Mistico by Thomas Tallis, where we can find a magnificent example of polyphony and a good English taste for an extreme musica ficta, in which often we have the same note and its chromatic accidental. Then we go back in Italy with a little opera omnia by Giulio Segni: the four Ricercari by Jacopo Fogliano. Even if they are not idiomatic, having similarity with vocal writing, those pieces have a huge musical impact. We will find again this kind of free composition only later on time with the so called stylus phantasticus. Next pieces underline with effectiveness the multiform soul of Spain during the Sixteenth century: Diferencias on Canto llano del caballero by Antonio de Cabezón are one of the first structured examples of theme with variations, which influence will be heard later in Sweelinck’s Flanders and afterwards through his German students as Scheidemann, Tunder and so on. For each variations the theme is presented in a different voice, counterpointed in a new manner. Tiento de cuarto tono by Luis Venegas de Henestrosa is the tablature of a Ricercare by Giulio Segni. However this piece is not a pure transcription, but a wise reorganization of the music material. A piece of ancient taste ends the Spanish group: Danza Alta by Francisco de la Torre. It is a piece for three voices in which the principal part, with a soloist character that evokes the sounding Alta Cappella of the time with its bombarde and trombone, moves on the counterpointed bass from another voice. The two last compositions look at the same time to past and to future: one Ricercare on De pacem Domine by Girolamo Parabosco from the collection Musica Nova and the madrigal Anchor che co’l partire by Cipriano De Rore. Parabosco’s composition is a work based on the Gregorian antiphon for the invocation of peace. The component technique announces in the voices the initial fragments of each section of cantus firmus and informs the writing of the choral-prelude. With Andrea Gabrieli our journey in the Sixteenth century ends: we have admired a variety of expressions and a richness of invention through the influence of countries and cultures.