Enríquez de Valderrábano
Spanish Renaissance vihuelist and composer whose 1547 Silva de sirenas gathers fantasias, diferencias, sonetos and song settings ordered by difficulty, including works for one or two vihuelas, with voice, and transcriptions from Josquin, Morales and others.
The book, issued in Valladolid, remains a central source for sixteenth-century Spanish instrumental practice. On our discs his music sits among fellow vihuelists: easy variations on Guárdame las vacas, a free fantasia in the fourth tone, a fantasia built on a contrapuntal Pleni, a Vásquez song arrangement, and a Lombard soneto treated as a dance. The writing moves between measured counterpoint, variation sets and lighter dance forms, the same world of intimate plucked colour heard beside Narváez, Milán, Mudarra and Fuenllana.
Compositions by Enríquez de Valderrábano appear on
Music of the Spanish Renaissance
La Compañia's first CD gathers seventeen Spanish Renaissance works on period instruments with soprano Vivien Hamilton, including cues heard in the film Elizabeth but omitted from its commercial soundtrack.
The Echo of Opheus
Vihuela music of Renaissance Spain. On vihuela, the ‘Spanish lute’, John Griffiths offers an intimate programme of fantasies, variations, intabulations and dances by the great sixteenth-century Spanish masters, framed by the Orpheus legend.