C 9660 FRANCESCO DA MILANO: IL LIBRO DELLA FORTUNA (1536) [11,99 Euro]

Qobuz - C 9660 Francesco da Milano: Libro della Fortuna (1536)

Today, July 1st, 2021, he collaboration between Cantus with the extraordinary lute, vihuela and guitar player Xavier Díaz-Latorre goes a step further. We are pleased to announce to his thousands of fans around the world the release of his recording devoted to Francesco da Milano 'Il Divino'. Xavier wanted to focus on one of the less frequented publications of the brilliant Francesco, 'Il Libro della Fortuna', published in Naples in 1536. To this end, in October 2019 we met, together with the sound engineer Gonzalo Noqué, in the beautiful parish church of Soto del Real (Madrid), venue of the International Festival of Early Music of that town, and of which Xavier Díaz-Latorre is a frequent guest artist.

There, with the three wonderful instruments used in this recording, all of them strung in gut (viola da mano tenor by Carlos González, viola da mano bass by Patrick Hoopmans and renaissance lute by Grant Tomlinson), our wonderful artist revealed aspects of the music of Francesco da Milano that we had never heard (nor felt) before.

It is not only the depth, colour, intensity and emotion provided by the use of the gut strings that makes the performances of Xavier Díaz-Latorre a formidable revelation, it is his capacity for introspection, his dazzling technique, his disarming sensitivity, his solid knowledge of the techniques of the time that make these versions a monument never heard before. Allied with a close but airy, round sound, this album allows us to discover a Da Milano that sounds, at the same time, more modern and more of his time than ever. Recovering the ornamental technique of the time, and assigning to each piece the sound of the instrument that could best represent its character and cover its musical needs (two viole da mano -the Italian name for Spanish vihuelas- and a lute), the amazing journey to which Xavier invites us here makes us hold our breath in the face of such beauty.