Nicolà Vicentino (1511-1575/6): Musica prisca caput

Madrigal demonstrating the three harmonic genera
Each line of the text is set in a different harmonic ‘genus’ inspired by Ancient Greek music: diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic. Vicentino’s enharmonic genus divides the octave into 31 steps, giving a microtonal scale of 1/5-tones.

Musica prisca caput tenebris modo sustulit altis
Dulcibus ut numeris priscis certantia factis
Facta tua, Ippolite, excelsum super aethera mittat.

Ancient music has recently raised her head out of the darkness
So that, with antique and sweet numbers to compete with ancient deeds,
Your great deeds, Hyppolitus, she might send above the heavens.

EXAUDI
Juliet Fraser soprano
Tom Williams countertenor
Stephen Jeffes tenor
Jimmy Holliday bass

James Weeks director

Recorded in Orford Church, Suffolk, 9 June 2017