One of the wonderful things about playing divisions on the cornetto is that you are playing a single line of a polyphonic texture. When the other voices are played on an Italian Renaissance organ, with its wonderfully vocal timbre and articulation, the cornetto becomes part of the organ. As the Italians phrased it, the cornetto plays nell’organo (in the organ), or in the words of John Evelyn, the English diarist, the cornetto “gives life to the organ”. I have always loved this experience. In fact, it is one of the reasons I have chosen to live in Italy for the past three decades, since Italian organs are so much more friendly to the cornetto and to voices than northern instruments. This way of bonding to the organ works well in division pieces, but it also works in polyphonic instrumental music, which of course developed out of the division tradition.For this reason, I have also chosen to play canzonas of Guami, Trabaci, and others, choosing pieces with a florid upper part, and freely adding my own Minute. I have divided the recording between pieces with organ (using the fine instrument of Graziadio Antegnati from 1565 in the church of Santa Barbara in Mantua) and others with an ensemble of three viols and harp. In this way I hope to show both the churchly side of the instrument and its more intimate, perhaps even ‘lascivious’ side.

Booklet: EN, FR, DE