Leonardo: Shaping the Invisible (2019)

performed by Catherine Martin (violin), Catherine Pierron (harpsichord), David Miller (chitarrone), Eligio Quinteiro (chitarrone), I Fagiolini, Kirsty Whatley (harp), Matthew Long (tenor), Naomi Burrell (violin), Peter McCarthy (violin), Rachel Stott (viola)
composed by Adrian Williams, Cipriano de Rore, Claudio Monteverdi, Clément Janequin, Edmund Rubbra, Herbert Howells, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, Johann Sebastian Bach, Josquin Des Prez, Orazio Vecchi, Thomas Tallis, Tomás Luis de Victoria

The attempt to draw correspondences between music and art is fraught with difficulty, for it involves philosophical questions that are unlikely to be solved within the scope of a single album. It works best when the lens is strong enough to permit extreme detail, as in the series of albums released in the early 2000s on the Alpha label, or, conversely, when the correspondences are drawn in very broad strokes. The latter happens here; the vocal group I Fagiolini, which has performed this music in live multimedia ... Read More

The attempt to draw correspondences between music and art is fraught with difficulty, for it involves philosophical questions that are unlikely to be solved within the scope of a single album. It works best when the lens is strong enough to permit extreme detail, as in the series of albums released in the early 2000s on the Alpha label, or, conversely, when the correspondences are drawn in very broad strokes. The latter happens here; the vocal group I Fagiolini, which has performed this music in live multimedia presentations, offers only one work from Leonardo's lifetime, the Agnus Dei from the Missa l'homme armé sexti toni. "Josquin and Leonardo would surely have known each other in Milan, creating one probably real-life art/music connection on this otherwise fantasy recording," the performers note. The rest of the program extends as far forward as Edmund Rubbra, and draws connections with Leonardo only at the most general level of subject matter. This is not a bad thing: the pieces chosen are quite... Read Less