Thomas Tallis (1505 – 1585)

The Third Tune (Virginal & Stiller Zink)

(“Nine Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parkeŕs Psalter 1567”)

Giovanni Gabrieli (1557 – 1613)

Canzon quarta á 4 (Virginal & Cembalo)

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 – 1643)

Corrente quattro

(Toccate …, Libro Primo, 1615) (Cembalo)

Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1575 - 1654)

El Canto Llano de la Immaculada Concepción de la Virgen Maria y tres Glosas (Virginal & Zink)

Hans Leo Hassler (1564 - 1612)

“Magnificat primi toni” (6 Versetten) (Cembalo)

Peter Philips (1560 – 1628)

Amarilli (nach Giulio Caccini) (Cembalo)

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1526 – 1594)

No other month has been depicted in music and poetry so frequently; the Romans dedicated the god of spring, Jupiter Maius, to it, and even in the nineteenth century, May was recognized in the arts as an intense natural event, as a departure into new times. Moreover, May is the month of the “Marian moon,” the month of fervent ado-ration of the Virgin Mary, as evidenced by an immense number of relevant works in the musical literature of all periods.

By means of selected dance movements, variation works, and Marian music from the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early Baroque, our program offers a “genre painting,” or to a certain degree a “musical sweetmeat,” a “diletto musicale” of this (also musically) so fruitful month.

The room in which we made our recordings is the small tower chapel of St. Martin’s Church in Medelsheim, Saarland, which represents an impressive and seldom example of a Gothic village church that isfurnished both simply and exquisitely; in spite of its moderate size, it has an exceptionally full and clear acoustic that transforms music-making in this room into a spiritually deeply touching experience.

This beautiful chapel inspired the artists to perform in the instrumental formation heard on this recording: two stringed keyboard instruments – copies of Italian harpsichords from the end of the sixteenth and middle of the seventeenth centuries – represent timbral and historical continuity, the almost archaic timbre of the cornet enriches the selected repertoire with the dimension of greater dynamics and expression (the heyday of this instrument was during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras).