Ed Lyon Tenor
Polyphony is where my heart still resides, and what struck me most when I first listened to Cantara el Alma, a recent recording of works by the Spanish composer Sebastián de Vivanco (1551-1622) by Ensemble Plus Ultra and others, is the sheer quality of the music-making. It’s one to a part, and it’s so impressive to hear a group of people listening so carefully to each other, performing these extraordinary individual lines yet managing to create a perfect blend.
Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI’s is one of my all-time favourite discs and inspired me to make my own recording of music from the same period. As the title suggests, ground bass is the basis for it,I really love is its accessibility. It has both a folk quality and an improvisational feel and is really tuneful too – this may sound almost wrong to say, but I like it because it’s not very demanding! It’s like 17th-century pop music, and that really appeals to me.
