This set of three CDs contains the complete ‘Chansonnier Cordiforme’, perhaps the most beautiful of all surviving music manuscripts whose first owner was Jean de Montchenu (d. 1497). It was compiled during the 1470s and contains 43 songs from the preceding 30 years by Dufay, Binchois, Ockeghem, Busnoys and other composers of the time. This […]

Anthony Rooley writes: ‘Even in 1926 when Peter Warlock published his brief essay on the English Lute Songs, John Danyel was singled out as being perhaps the finest lute-song composer (John Dowland not excepted) by perceptive Warlock. Nobody believed him then and not much has changed now – but I agree with Warlock. John Danyel […]

Renaissance secular music between 1480 and 1620 is large in quantity, high in quality, rich in colour, diverse in form and very different in content from a similar time-span of any later period with which we may be more familiar. This set of four compact discs provides a comprehensive survey of sixteenth-century secular music. Composers […]