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What Classical Music Are You Listening To?


StarThrower

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I'm going through/sampling all my classical CDs chronologically step by step, beginning with 11th Century figures like Leonin and Perotin. I've passed through Are Subtilor stuff now. Many interesting, even hair-raising at times, twists and turns along the way. Don't think I have many gaps historically, in terms of continuity, allowing for the possibility that there may be some significant missing pieces in terms of what's come down to us. Most surprising figure so far has been Cicconia. The stylistic gap between his relative smoothness and sophistication and in some respects modernity and the flavor and procedures of the immediately preceding music is considerable.

Moving on now to  not that well-known (at least to me) Renaissance composers of the  early to mid-16th Century (e.g. Crecquillon, Phinot, De Monte, Schoendorf, Vaet, et al.) most of whom I only have single CDs of on the Hyperion label, I should say that my generally positive response to their music may be conditioned in good part by the fact that the performers are in every case the superb six-man European vocal ensemble Cinqueconto.

 Interesting -- and this is only my subjective response -- but I'm finding s distinct dropoff in quality and freshness of inspiration as I move into the 16th Century, i.e. the 1500s. Styistically a good deal seems re-cycled and rather stale. In particular, for one, the often  primarily contrapuntal  methods of previous eras have now resolved into what might be called contrapuntalism -- a screen of imitative textures that sound like there on automatic pilot. One can almost smell the advent of Montaverdian monody to come. Even in Palestrina's contrapuntal wizardry one can detect a drive toasted plainness and simplicity.

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