A Venetian living in the first half of the 16th century, Ganassi published three of the earliest treatises setting out how to improvise. Alongside his four arresting recercars, here is a veritable pantheon of early-16thcentury composers, renowned as performers in their day: fellow Italians Cavazzoni, Fogliano, Francesco da Milano, Ripa and Segno, as well as Franco-Flemish and south Netherlands contemporaries – Arcadelt, Gombert and Willaert – who gravitated to Italy.

The four instrumentalists performing on this CD have made it their mission to master the art of improvising in the 16th-century style. Their formidable command of diminution (filling in between the composed notes) and their individual, expressive genius astonish and delight. Marianne Muller plays the tenor and bass viols with particular grace and eloquence. Pierre Boragno more overtly exploits the virtuosity implicit in Ganassi’s compendia – applying techniques of breathing, tonguing and fingering – and still has time to stretch and syncopate rhythms within the metre of the music rather as a jazz musician would. Massimo Moscardo delivers polished readings on both lute and guitar, as does François Saint-Yves on organ and harpsichord.

Among the highlights are the music by Willaert, the three-part Francesco Fantasie, the two readings of Fogliano’s three-voice madrigal Io vorrei Dio d’amore and Gombert’s appropriately titled Je prends congié, originally an eight-part chanson, that concludes this remarkable exploration of a lost – now revived – tradition.