Muerte, Danza y Ensalada
(Death, Dance and Salad)

Music of the Spanish Renaissance courts to die, dance and eat to.
4 singers,  vihuela/lute  harp

This attractive programme brings together haunting laments, fiery dances and two ‘salads’ – mixtures of languages and foot-tapping rhythms, written as entertainments for the Valencian court. The performance includes Mateo Da Flecha’s ‘El Fuego’, staged by Peter Wilson MBE who has also staged Handel’s Acis & Galatea, Purcell’s Indian Queen and a host of Renaissance dramas for I Fagiolini.

Spanish song from the 15th and 16th centuries reflected the mix of strongly rooted traditions and more outward-looking and cosmopolitan cultures that flourished throughout the Iberian Peninsula as the result of dynastic politics, travel and trade.  Ferdinand and Isabella looked to Burgundy for cultural influence, and the influence of Flemish artists, architects, illuminators and weavers is clearly apparent. Trade routes between France and Italy were expanded; Aragonese territories in Italy and constant travel to and from Rome consolidated artistic exchange between Renaissance Italy and Spain, and into this cultural melting-pot were injected elements of the Moorish heritage so firmly ingrained over the centuries.

The Moorish theme is also often present in the songs inspired by the reconquest of the kingdom of Granada in 1492 from the wistful longing of ‘Qu’es de ti, desconsolado?’ to the boistrous arguing of the shepherds in ‘Levanta Pascual’ or the lament of the Moorish king, ‘Una sañosa porfía’.  But dance is never far away and concludes this programme of ‘death, dance and salad’.