Words were more important than music in the Italian 16th century and song was therefore a higher art form than instrumental music. Composers such as Cipriano da Rore who observed the natural speech rhythms were afforded the highest accolades.

Wordplay presents a collection of highly decorated vocal music in purely instrumental performance. The disc explores the role of the soloist in a period of music which has come to be defined by consort playing. In the two centuries that this repertoire covers the borrowing and reworking of the music of earlier composers was regarded as creative, original and even as an act of respect or homage.

The album is structured around instrumental divisions on five famous songs of 16th century and one bass-dance tenor. The divisions are for recorder, bass viol or lute. In total 17 different instruments are used including three types of recorder, three types of lute, seven sizes of viol, and a chamber organ. All are precise copies of early Italian instruments including wide-bore recorders and sound-postless viols.

Central to Wordplay are the writings of Slyvestro Ganassi, a recorder and viol player in early 16th century Venice. In La Fontegara (1535) and Regola Rubertina (1545) Ganassi defines the aim of the instrumentalist as being to imitate a good singer, and describes two distinct ways of doing so.

The first is naturalistic - how to replicate the singer's tonal and dynamic variety exactly (on the recorder with varied breath pressure and alternative fingerings, on the viol with bow and finger vibrato etc).

The second involves study of the text and using trills (from suave quarter-tones to vivace wide major thirds) and elaborate divisions (with notated syncopations and rubato) to express the sense of particular words and emotions. Fifty years later, Dalla Casa, Bassano and Rognoni have developed a more idiomatic instrumental style and have more polished and formulaic passaggi.

All the pieces - though instrumentalists - use exclusively vocal originals, and all would pay more than lip service to Giovanni Bardi's precept: "Words are the soul, music but the body"

WordPlay is one of the first recordings made in York's newly opened National Centre for Early Music in the church of St Margaret, Walmgate.

Musica Antiqua is one of England's most celebrated early music ensembles and they have triumphed here with their third disc for Signum Records!

Instrumentale uitvoeringen van 16e-eeuwse Italiaanse liederen
Wordplay presenteert een collectie rijkelijk versierde vocale muziek uit het 16e-eeuwse Italië in zuiver instrumentale uitvoeringen. Het album verkent de rol van de solist in een periode die bepaald wordt door ensemblespel. In de twee eeuwen die dit repertoire omvat werd het lenen en bewerken van de muziek van vroegere componisten beschouwd als creatief, origineel en zelfs als een daad van hulde of respect.

Het album is gestructureerd rond instrumentale verdelingen voor blokfluit, basgamba of luit van vijf beroemde 16e-eeuwse liederen en de tenorpartij van een basdans. Er worden in totaal zeventien verschillende instrumenten gebruikt, waaronder drie types van blokfluiten en luiten, zes formaten van gamba's en een kamerorgel. Allen zijn exacte kopieën van oude Italiaanse instrumenten.

Alle werken gebruiken uitsluitend vocale originelen, en bewijzen meer dan lippendienst aan het principe van Giovanni Bardi: “Woorden zijn de ziel, muziek slechts het lichaam.”

De werken worden uitgevoerd door Musica Antiqua, een van de beroemdste oude muziekensembles uit Engeland.