Luogo e data di registrazione		Chapelle de l'hôpital Notre-Dame de Bon Secours, Paris (Francia) - novembre 2004
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		Alpha
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Hugues Deschaux
	Prima Edizione LP		nessuna
	Prima Edizione CD		Alpha - ut pictura musica | 073 | 1 CD - durata 52' 12" | (c) 2004 | DDD
	Cover Art		William Larkin, Lady Diana Cecil, countess of Oxford, Greenwich, Londres, Ranger's House, Suffolk Collection
	Note		Digipack

William Larkin (London, c.1585-1619) Lady Diana Cecil, countess of Oxford, c.1614-1618 (Oil on canvas, 200 x 117 cm) Greenwich (London), Ranger's House, Suffolk Collection By the end of the reign of the monarch affectionately dubbed “Good Queen Bess” by her subjects, who died in 1603, costume had reached a level of elaboration and sophistication never before seen in England, or even in Europe. This development was the consequence of the attitude of majestic dignity in which this last Tudor queen draped herself, at once close and aloof, and of the devotion in which she was held by subjects grateful to her for having established peace and consolidated the institution of monarchy without the shedding of blood. They had sacralised Elizabeth, a “Virgin Queen” reputed intact - or so at least she loudly proclaimed, making this condition a token of her exclusive fidelity to her people. Thus she had become almost a new Virgin Mary, in a sense setting herself up in place of the original demoted by the Protestant religion. The portraits of this daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn had become ventable icons, immobile, hieratic, cosmic and harmonious representations, at once of the mystic body of royalty and of the sovereign's presence, real and symbolic. The royal portrait became a votive image that was to be the object of a quasi-religious cult, whose object, moreover, was also head of the new Anglican Church. In order to ensure the diffusion of these images to the four corners of the realm, and throughout the known world, models were created that could be reproduced as desired, with iconographic adaptations stressing such and such an aspect of the royal person. While not invested with the same legitimacy, her courtiers and their ladies were to imitate the queen, and thus be transformed into “saints” fixed “for all eternity”. Following on from these developments, early Stuart culture under James VI and I (1605-25) represents a period of transition that perpetuates the demanding aesthetic canon of Elizabethan erat Hence it is not surprising that the Jacobean portrait has an old-fashioned, archaic quality which in its turn cultivates idealisation rather than mimesis, whereas, during the reign of Charles I (1625-49), a new style was gradually to instil in the last vestiges of the English Renaissance a resurgence of nature over a background of Venetian picturality, characteristic of the European Baroque. Diana Cecil (1596-1654) was a member of the Exeter branch of the illustrious line of Cecil (Cissell), whose origins date back to the tenth century and to which William Cecil, Elizabeth's principal counsellor and lord treasurer, also belonged. Her first marriage was to the hereditary grand chamberlain Henry de Vere, eighteenth Earl of Oxford (and son of William Byrd's patron), whose family came originally from the Cotentin region of Norrnandy; she brought him a dowry of £ 30,000. She later married Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin. A notable beauty, Diana had a twin sister, Anne, Countess of Stamford, who like her was the subject of a life-size, full-length portrait by William Larkin. The son of an obscure London innkeeper, this painter is supposed to have been a pupil of Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619) whose career straddles the two reigns. Larkin represents the final phase of the 'neo-medieval' style so greatly appreciated by his aristocratic clientele, and shows a taste for the brilliant colour of his masters miniatures. The twinship of these effìgies in this pair known as the “Suffolk set”, the artist's masterpiece, is total: except for the discreet identifying label placed at the top of the two pictures and a different decoration of the bottom of the hanging to the right, the blonde hair, fair complexion and shorter stature of Anne constitute the only difference compared with the brown hair and darker colouring of the Countess of Oxford. In accordance with the formula developed by the artist, the subject stands before a wall hung with a double curtain of rich “Bronzino“ green, with its stiff folds, ridges transformed into arabesques gleaming with vibrant light: the trick has earned Larkin the nickname of “curtain master”. As usual, one arm is leaning on the back of an armchair in a paler shade of the same colour, its legs reminiscent of old curule chairs, on which rests a cushion with golden tassels; the same gold braid fringes the seat and emphasises the chair's outlines in decorative bands. The face with its direct gaze (the arch of the eyebrows carefully drawn), the make-up and the vermillion of the lips are set off by the long pearls that sparkle at her earlobes. Silver-coloured as was the Elizabethan norm, Diana's dress is decorated with a multitude of slashed folds and embroidered with gold. Her bosom, decked with a long row of pearls knotted at the centre on an appliqué in the form of a white rose, fixed to the tight corsage, has disappeared under the hodice. The inverted pyramid placed on top of that formed by the farthingale (a Spanish import), whose summit coincides with her waist, is faithful to the fashion of earlier days. The lace ruff, typical of the early seventeenth century, is echoed by elegant cuffs of the same material. The right hand, whose wrist is adorned with a bracelet, holds a fan, another borrowing from Spain, while the left clutches an elegant embroidered handkerchief, doubtless scented, which the lady can drop in the hope that a gallant will take it as a pretext to court her, despite the string that attaches it to her arm. To the right, the hanging with its gilded decoration echoes the sumptuous Turkish carpet laid on the floor. The horror vacui that is the consequence of such accumulation of ornament indicates that the artist is more preoccupied with beauty, meticulous detail, technical precision and refinement, than with spatial values, which places his art in the late Mannerist tradition of his country. A decade after the great queen's death, the English portrait, following on directly from those of the sixteenth century, is as formal as can be, and in this respect entirely in conformity with the tradition established under Elizabeth. If the linear and symmetrical, bilateral character of the composition creates an impression of structural rigour, reinforced by the many straight lines, the effect is nonetheless not static, for the satiny surface is animated by frequent disruptions. While the steadiness of the subject's gaze and the almost mechanical insertion of the barely turned head in the ruff heighten this impression, the waves created by the angularities of the curtain offer a “contrapuntal” animation that attenuates the apparent rigidity. The complexity of these numerous angles and interlacing lines brings to mind the music of the composer, who requires skill and vinuosity of his performers. England is at the dawn of a new age; while still remaining faithful to its heritage, unique for its insularity and early break with Rome, the country's art retains intact its curiosity for can be seen and heard on the continent, and resolves the tensions resulting from this contact with 'terra firma' by retaining only what seems suitable, and reinterpreting that as it pleases. Though more inclined towards music and poetry, England is nevertheless beginning little by little to appropriate the art of painting that was initially left in the hands of the Germans, the Flemish and the Dutch, while still taking advantage of their presence. In 1658 - twenty years after William Larkin - Anton van Dyck, a pupil and competitor of Rubens, will paint the portrait of Diana Cecil now conserved in the Prado: by then, the Renaissance will have had its day, and a new century will have begun. Denis Grenier Department of History Laval University, Quebec Translation: Charles Johnston Byrd - Harpsichord pieces The genius of William Byrd flowered at a very special period in the history of Western music, the last years of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth. Those composers active at the time lived through the historic moment that marked the end of the Renaissance and the first stirrings of the Baroque: a period of unique upheavals, as the voice became emancipated from its harmonic accompaniment, and independent instrumental music began to develop. Byrd was to be at once a witness and an architect of this profound transformation. A pioneer of these modern times, acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of keyboard music in Europe, he was to encourage the blossoming of the new generation, that of the early Baroque, active in the first half of the new century. And what a generation! Dominated by the towering figure of Monteverdi, Shakespeare's contemporary, it could also boast, in the Catholic territories of southern and western Europe, the Frenchman Jehan Titelouze, the Ferrarese Girolamo Frescobaldi, organist at St Peter's in Rome, and the Andalusian Francisco Correa de Arauxo; while in the Protestant lands to the north and east there were the Dutchman Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, organist in Amsterdam, the Englishmen John Bull and Orlando Gibbons, and the Saxon Samuel Scheidt. It was indeed a most fortunate era, for to these famous names we might add those, important though less well-known, of the Neapolitan Giovanni Maria Trabaci, the Walloon Pieter Cornet, and the Thuringian Michael Praetorius. With the passing of the centuries, Byrd has come to be seen as the foremost composer of his time, marking the apotheosis of English music. After the new peak attained by Purcell at the end of the seventeenth century, the inspiration of this school was gradually to dry up, leaving pre-eminence to Italy, then to France and Germany. Byrd's heyday precisely coincided with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. She came to the throne on the death of Mary Tudor, in 1558; Byrd was then not yet twenty. And her long reign ended forty-five years later, in 1605. Byrd was thus the Elizabethan composer par excellence, occupying the same role as his younger contemporary Shakespeare played in the domains of drama and literature. Though he spent his whole life in the service of the Anglican Church, Byrd was born a Roman Catholic, and a Catholic he remained. The Act of Supremacy enacted by Henry VIII in 1534 asserted the independence of the English national Church, a dissident Catholic Church. Byrd was still a child when Edward VI, son of Henry VIII (and of Jane Seymour), confirmed the independence of the Church of England: the Book of Common Prayer established the Anglican liturgy, while the influence of Reformation ideas increased. But on Edward's death, his half-sister Mary Tudor, daughter of Catherine of Aragon and short-lived second wife of Philip II of Spain, returned to Catholicism. Her violent repression of the Protestants earned her the unenviable nickname 'Bloody Mary'. Then came another volteface when she died in 1558, to be succeeded by another half-sister, Elizabeth (daughter of Anne Boleyn), who was no sooner on the throne than she instituted a vigorous anti-papist reaction. With the Oath of Supremacy and Act of Uniformity of 1559, followed by the promulgation of the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563, she laid the foundations of the Anglican Church. Amid the unrest of this troubled period, Byrd upheld the faith of his fathers. His prestige must have been considerable, given that the queen continued to protect him and that he was never harassed during the keen religious disputes that shook the country. We know little of the childhood of William Byrd. He is thought to have been born to a musical family in London around 1540. There is good reason to believe that he sang from an early age as a boy chorister in the Chapel Royal, where he probably studied the organ and composition under its director Thomas Tallis, with whom he was later to collaborate. He was certainly a highly gifted child and young man, for many of his compositions date from his teenage years. Gifted enough, in any case, to be appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Lincoln Cathedral in 1563, when he must have been barely into his twenties, with his professional qualities recognised by a salary considerably higher than was customary. He stayed at Lincoln until 1570. Byrd very quickly established himself as an outstanding personality, thanks to his performing skill on keyboard instruments, his burgeoning reputation as a composer, and what one can only term his charisma with both colleagues and pupils. Though few copies now survive, Byrd had already composed a great deal by this time, first trying his hand at every genre in imitation of the English, Italian or Flemish masters, and fairly rapidly finding a language of his own. In 1570 he appeared in London, where he was reunited with his friend Thomas Tallis at the Chapel Royal, becoming the latter's deputy. A close and exemplary friendship grew up between the two men. Byrd's reputation was constantly on the increase. Soon he was fêted by a number of high-ranking aristocrats, achieving universal admiration and the protection of the queen in person, since in 1572 he was sworn in as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. The next year, the Earl of Oxford, a poet- and himself a Catholic, like most of the noble amateur musicians Byrd frequented - gave him a lease on land belonging to him. Five years after Byrd's arrival at the Chapel Royal, in 1575, the queen granted Tallis and Byrd a monopoly on music printing in England, a line of business little exploited until then. In order to express their gratitude to the sovereign, the two composers dedicated their first publication to her, issuing in that same year a collection of thirty-four Cantiones sacrae, quae ab argumento sacrae vacantur, Latin motets for five to eight voices, with each of them contributing half the total. The queen was then in the seventeenth year of her reign, and each man thus offered her seventeen cantiones. But alongside these motets, Byrd did not neglect secular instrumental music, and his pavans and galliards for virginal also date from this period. He was now at the height of his activity as a composer. Over the years, he published four volumes of sacred music in Latin, three masses and three collections of sacred music in English, not to mention what was printed here and there in collective anthologies such as Parthenia. Another sign of the popularity of his works is that they were often copied into manuscript collections of music, in particular the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and Will Forster's Virginal Book. The most important source for his keyboard works is My Ladye Nevells Booke, a compilation finished in 1591. Of all the dates that punctuate the biography of a figure who had by this time become illustrious, one especially deseryes mention here for its signal importance in the history of English music: the year1613. This was the date of publication in London of an anthology of works for virginal named Parthenia, to which Byrd contributed eight pieces. The plates of this collection were entirely engraved by William Hole; it was the first time that music had been printed by copper engraving in England. At a period when music was becoming more complex and ornate, this system was much more legible than Gutenberg's movable type. Moreover, it was also, at the dawn of this century which was to see the flowering of the Baroque aesthetic, the very first published collection of instrumental music, and was to remain so for decades to come. Its very title proclaims the fact loud and clear: Parthenia, or The Maydenheas of the First Musicke that ever was Printed for the Virginalls. Thanks to his great renown, Byrd attracted a large number of talented pupils, so many indeed that he was nicknamed “The Father of Musick”. Several are still celebrated today, among them Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tomkins, Thomas Morley, and John Bull. Byrd gave up his post at the Chapel Royal in 1618, on the grounds of his advanced age, and was succeeded by Gibbons and Edmund Hopper. Like his friend Tallis, he died in his eighties, at Stondon Massey (Essex), on 4 July 1623. Byrd's oeuvre is extensive and protean. His name is attached to the “English virginalist school”, which covers the whole second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, and of which he is the most illustrious representative, if not indeed the founding father. But the art of Byrd cannot be reduced to this role alone, however important it may have been. His compositional output is divided between the sacred and secular spheres - he wrote for both church and chamber. Hence it contains motets and psalms on the one hand, and madrigals with consort of viols on the other. As to his works for keyboard, these are intended in part for virginals, in part for organ, while also being suitable for performance on the lute. It should be recalled here that the general term “virginal” at that time did not designate merely the rectangular English spinet, but the whole range of keyboard instruments, as is shown by an abundant iconography. A large corpus of some 130 pieces for keyboard by Byrd has come down to us, varying in length from one to ten minutes. With the exception of a few scattered pieces of a whimsical variety, they chiefly illustrate a small number of genres which at the time were at the height of their popularity in England. One may obserye in them Byrd's twin penchant for both cyclic works, unified and closed, and open, expansive forms in multiple sections. This is a new, nascent art. As a man of the late Renaissance, Byrd conceived music from the perspective of polyphony organised into rich counterpoint, whether in the genres cultivated in the sixteenth century, chiefly motets and masses, or in the new styles of music for keyboard, even in the dances. Again and again his instrumental music seems to be underpinned by the idea of vocal polyphony. Yet he is also a “modern”, with his solo songs and his madrigals. These diverse facets of his musical personality are admirably combined in the genre of variations for keyboard. Here he emerges as an eminent master of elaboration over an ostinato, whose various linked episodes lead towards the control of large-scale form. These works are generally made up of juxtaposed sections. This is the case with the fantasias or preludes. A characteristic example is the Fantasia in A minor, which comprises three main sections. Opening after the manner of a ricercare, it becomes increasingly animated, showing a verve teeming with new ideas, in a multitude of rhythmic figures that jostle with one another, binary or ternary, sometimes lopsided, reserving countless surprises. Some such works seem more particularly intended for the organ, such as Clarifica me, Pater, a youthful work from the Lincoln period, his first truly personal piece. Many of these pieces are derived from dance steps. Among them are the pavans, followed by their galliards, a genre that flourished all through the Renaissance period. The allemande, very different in character, with its top line richly charged with ornamentation, was becoming extremely popular at this period. As to the volta (called volte in French), a triple-time dance of Provençal origin, somewhat slower than the galliard, it had been much appreciated in France since the reign of Henri II. This was the only dance that was performed in couples, giving it an audacious character further emphasised by the leaping three-quarter turns executed by the dancers. Everyone knows the famous painting showing the Earl of Leicester dancing this step with Queen Elizabeth, whom he grasps as she springs, as if in a snapshot, without her feet touching the ground. But Byrd, as we have said, shows a pronounced penchant for the art of variation, which sets in relief the virtuosity of the performer and even more so the composer's imagination, rhythmic invention and taste for subtle, unexpected harmonies. Especially when the variations are founded on the reiteration of a single underlying motif, in the “ground”, the English equivalent of the chaconne or passacaglia (as in Qui Passe for my Lady Nevell). This was to be the genre of choice for musicians for more than a century to come. For here we have the affirmation of the ideal of Baroque art: to attain large-scale, unified form by drawing the multiple from the single, to display unity in diversity. Or, as Leibniz was to express it in theoretical terms: “Perfection is the harmony of things... identity in variety.” Gilles Cantagrel Translation: Charles Johnston