This is one of several albums of Spanish Renaissance secular music issued by the Glossa label and featuring soprano Núria Rial and countertenor Carlos Mena, with vihuela player José Miguel Moreno. Both Rial and Mena are veteran singers, well suited to the Spanish repertory, much of which has a direct and often sexy quality that flourished in the New World even more vigorously than it had in Spain. But this collection is a little different. It's also attractive, but listeners should be clear on what they're getting: a ...
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This is one of several albums of Spanish Renaissance secular music issued by the Glossa label and featuring soprano Núria Rial and countertenor Carlos Mena, with vihuela player José Miguel Moreno. Both Rial and Mena are veteran singers, well suited to the Spanish repertory, much of which has a direct and often sexy quality that flourished in the New World even more vigorously than it had in Spain. But this collection is a little different. It's also attractive, but listeners should be clear on what they're getting: a speculative reconstruction of music that might or might not have existed in the middle of the 16th century. The 1554 collection Orphénica Lyra was a set of adaptations ("intabulations") of vocal music by Miguel de Fuenllana, transferring a wide variety of pieces, including sacred polyphony, to the viheula or the closely related guitar. Fuenllana's intabulations apparently were quite difficult; the vihuelist even invoked the Book of Job in his introduction, warning players of the hard work...
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