Hans Isaac

Alexander
$2.99
This 'Final Cut' version is a totally new movie and wonderful. Don't imagine first one. In this version, you can understand more clearly about Alexander's life and feeling.

Prepares to Sacrifice His Son Isaac But Told by Angel at the Last Minute That a Sheep Will Suffice Fine Art Giclee Poster Print by Hans Holbein the Younger, 24x18
$50.00
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Isaac: La Spagna
$25.98
...but less than wonderfully performed. I'm sorry to have to disagree with Mr. Josquin (the previous reviewer). I had very high hopes for this CD, but I doubt I'll ever listen to it again. Those who are disposed to say that all Renaissance music sounds alike are requested to stay away from this disk, lest their fallacious prejudice be confirmed. The tempi, both instrumental and choral, are slugglish throughout and monotonously uniform. Paolo Pandolfo, the gambist, seems unaware of many of the possibilities of his instrument for variety of articulation and tone. The choir sings vowels, not words. The choral attacks are imprecise. The choral sound is somber, billowy, pillowy... just the kind of churchy rumble that renders none of the structure of polyphony audible.
***Three stars for noble intentions***

The A-La-Mi-Re Manuscripts - Flemish Polyphonic Treasures
$8.99
Early Music programs are a lot like fine wines; single vintage bottlings are the fashion, but sometimes blends are easier on the palette. Likewise, most high-end recordings of Renaissance and Baroque tend to be "complete" works by a single composer. That works well enough for Baroque oratorios, but Renaissance music comes in smaller packages - motets, villancicos, carmina, usually no more tha four to six minutes long. I know from hard experience that a concert program of 15 similar motets, however finely performed, will be hard to sell.

Capilla Flamenca has taken another option, a blended program of vocal works by different composers spiced with instrumental fantasies of the same era. The risk of such a concert program is lack of focus and unity, but Capilla Flamenca has answered that challenge by the neat device of centering their program around Petrus Alamire, one of the great calligrapher and manuscript illuminators of the 16th Century, whose work was avidly collected by Charles V and Margarite of Austria. The name "Alamire" is a musical jest, A for the tonic note, la, mi, and re for the intervals of the scale. The man's real name was Imhofe.

Composers represented on this CD include Josquin Desprez, Pierre de la Rue, Heinrich Isaac, Jean Mouton, Adrian Willaert, and Anon -- all the greats of the Flemish musical mafia which conquered all of Europe in the 15th and 16th Centuries. Instrumental works are performed on "alta capella" shawms and trombones, solo lute, and "bassa capella" viola da gamba consort. In this context, 'alta' means loud, 'bassa' means soft. 'Flamenco' means Flemish, by the way; the Flemish influence on Spanish music of the Renaissance was the starting point for the later Spanish popular music we now call flamenco.

I found this CD on a shelf in my apartment in Rome. I must have bought it five or six years ago, and never got around to listening to it until now. What a stunning surprise! This relatively unknown ensemble of young Belgians can really sing, and sing this repertoire as proudly as if it were their national heritage, which it is. The instrumentalists are all part of an ensemble called La Caccia, also Belgian judging by their names. Their bright tones are as effective as ginger for cleansing the musical palette between sips of oak-barrel aged vocal polyphony.