Given his renown as a composer of madrigals, it comes as a shock that Cipriano de Rore’s discography is so skewed towards the sacred music. Graindelavoix’s typically idiosyncratic recent survey (Glossa, 2/18) began to redress the balance, and here are two new recordings entirely devoted to them. The selection from La Compagnia del Madrigale is especially significant: it brings together a score of his most famous settings, mostly from his wondrous late period. The sinuous but chordal chromaticism of ‘Sebben il duol’ has a magical ring to it, foreshadowing the later madrigalists while retaining the formal lucidity that characterises his output. For me this is one of the standouts, but the entire collection is perhaps the best introduction to Cipriano now available. At its best it equals anything that has been done in this repertory by the other ensembles in which these hugely experienced singers have sung: the tuning of the stately yet intimate ‘Alma Susanna’ positively rings, and the formal severity of ‘O sonno’ is wonderfully legible. So fine is it that one regrets that the standard falls sometimes just short of such heights: what might have been had the tuning in ‘Sebben il duol’ been just that bit truer, its transitions still more finely staged? If Cipriano leaves his interpreters little room to hide, he sets them a challenge that the listener can really appreciate, and that appreciation is bound to grow the more one listens. The way they set up and then launch into the second part of ‘Mia benigna fortuna’ (the famous ‘Crudel acerba’) is positively bracing.

Cipriano’s complete setting of Petrarch’s stanzas to the Virgin were recorded by the Hilliard Ensemble early in their career, more than 35 years ago (Harmonia Mundi, 2/84); and, though a little straitlaced, theirs is a sunny, lucid performance. But again it comes as a surprise that it has had no successors (to my knowledge). Currende’s approach could hardly be more different: a live performance mixing voices and instruments, it introduces each stanza with a spoken recitation of the text by an Italian member of the ensemble, delivered with genuine feeling. All the stanzas are performed straight through with voices but are preceded with excerpted passages given over to instruments entirely. These changes of scoring give a sense of variety, and there is also a degree of ornamentation, something that isn’t done enough in modern performances. But not all these strategies translate positively from live performance to disc: the purely instrumental episodes strike me as superfluous, a view that others may not share but which inevitably colours the overall impression. The recitations are to my mind especially distracting, especially given the sonic artefacts (coughs, squeaky chairs) that intrude more often than one expects in a professional recording. Because recitation and music are on the same track, the listener cannot simply skip them (a minor point, perhaps, but an unnecessarily rigid use of the technology). As with the details of the performance itself, it’s hard not to conclude that such a thoughtful project would have benefited from a studio recording and stronger editorial control.