Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)For the listener seeking an introduction to cornetts and sackbuts, that preeminent and ever versatile Renaissance ensemble, this excellent recording would surely take some beating. Covering the main period of these instruments' heyday (c.1500-c.1700) and drawing together music from 3 different countries (Italy, Spain and Germany), the group His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts perform a diverse range of works here in every imaginable combination possible (both solo and ensemble), and these pieces are complemented by several keyboard solos which are played with verve by Timothy Roberts. Much of the repertoire included in this programme was conceived specifically for cornetts and sackbuts; elsewhere, works originally composed for violin (e.g. track 4), keyboard (e.g. tracks 11-16) or voices (e.g. track 10) are sensitively arranged by the performers in accordance with what is known and accepted about the practices of contemporary musicians. Only with some of the Spanish music - where 'ministriles' principally played shawms (rather than cornetts) with sackbuts - is there perhaps a faint question mark over the historical accuracy of the overall picture painted by these performances. (Seville Cathedral, for example, where Francisco de Peñalosa (c.1470-1528) worked, and where the first band of 'ministriles' was employed on a full-time basis in 1526, hired a group of 3 shawms and 2 sackbuts).
There is, however, one minor but nonetheless important point which should be highlighted: track 21, indicated as being the 'Canzona super Cantionem Gallicam Est-ce Mars?' in both the liner notes and track listing, has been incorrectly identified...! In actual fact, the piece which is really performed here is the Canzona that follows this one in Scheidt's 'Ludi Musici', namely the 'Canzon à 5 voc. super Intradam Aechiopicam Cantus XXX'. [As a side note, it seems a bit strange that His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts did not perform one of the two pieces which were clearly intended for cornetts and sackbuts in Scheidt's collection of 1621, especially given that most of the works seem to have been written 'particularly for consorts of string-players with continuo' ('potissimum Violistarum concinnata unà cum Basso Continuo') - they are the 'Canzon Cornetto à 4 voc. Cantus XVIII' and the 'Courant XXXII à 5 voc. ad imitationem Courant XVII' (which carries the indication '2 clarin' and '3 posaun')].
In spite of this small slip, however, this CD can be easily recommended - and all the more so given that it is now available at such a reasonable price!
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