Music in the Renaissance: Saturday Classics 13 February

[doversoul1]

I posted this on another thread but it may be useful here, too.

Ahead of his BBC4 series Renaissance Unchained, art critic Waldemar Januszczak conjures up the sound world of this epoch of huge passions and powerful religious emotions across all of Europe. The term 'Renaissance', or 'rinascita', was coined by Giorgio Vasari in 16th-century Florence, and his assertion that it had fixed origins in Italy has since influenced all of art history. But what of Flanders, Germany and the rest of Northern Europe? Waldemar presents music from the time of the Renaissance greats: Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo and El Greco.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0702y8k

[doversoul1]

Waldemar Januszczak sounds like a cross between Simon Heighes and Rob Cowan, roughed up (down?) a couple of notches. He doesn’t talk much about the music, just enough to introduce the works and I can’t say I like his presentation style very much but it doesn’t spoil the music. Two hours of it. Glorious.

[Richard Tarleton]

Yes - an excellent programme. Even some German lute music (Neusidler) played by Konrad Ragossnig, a musician of many parts. Few lutenists these days play with their (right hand) fingernails - Ragossnig, like Julian Bream (born a year later), does/did. They both play guitar, of course. The result a much sharper edged sound. This is the CD from which WJ's selections came - Renaissance lute music from 8 European countries, including England (Dowland, Bacheler). Paul O'Dette has recorded a lovely album of Neusidler's lute music, played without nails, a more HIP sound

[jean]

(I posted this on the other thread.)

These programmes on the visual arts always short-change the music - in extreme cases, they're even accompanied by music of the wrong period altogether.

So congratulations to whoever had the idea of giving WJ a whole two-hour slot just to concentrate on the music! He's doing very well I think.

(I had never realised that Josquin came under the influence of Savonarola. Now I'll hear that wonderful Miserere with new ears.)