Diego Ortiz
Diego Ortiz's recercadas are inventive variations on popular ground basses, written for the viola da gamba and still central to early-music programmes. His Trattado de Glosas remains the great sixteenth-century guide to bowed-string ornamentation.
The recercadas on our discs come from that 1553 treatise, which pairs practical models of diminution with pieces built on familiar harmonic patterns such as the passamezzo. Ortiz also left a large body of sacred polyphony for four to seven voices, grounded in plainchant and written in a deliberately conservative style suited to chapel use, with instruments welcome to double the lines in the Spanish manner of his day.
Compositions by Diego Ortiz appear on
Venice to Versailles
Venice and Versailles represent the two dominant and contrasting styles of music in Europe during the Baroque period: Venice, the robust, joyous exuberance and barocco character of the Italian style, and Versailles, the refinement, delicacy, elegance and douceur of the French.
Songs of Love and Marriage
Benjamin Thorn and Wayne Madden present a journey through 600 years of music on the theme of love. You'll find rarely heard works by Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini as well as the more familiar music of Telemann and Ortiz.