DESCRIPTION:
Video direction: Philippe de Magnée
Album release: February 2015

LE MIROIR DE MUSIQUE
María Cristina Kiehr: soprano
Giovanni Cantarini: tenor
Brigitte Gasser: lirone & renaissance viola da gamba
Baptiste Romain: lira da braccio & renaissance violin
Julian Behr: renaissance lute & chitarrone

Among the different practices of the Renaissance in 15th and 16th century Italy, the act of singing to the accompaniment of the lyre held a special symbolic role, linked to the myth of Orpheus and to the divine figure of Apollo. With its origins lying in the humanist circles of the mid-15th century, this recitation of epic and lyrical texts initially took the form of monophonic music accompanied by the lira da braccio, itself an antiquated transformation of the bowed vielle of the 15th century. With the invention of the lirone in the years around 1500, the role of the accompaniment was gradually transformed, to be revived in the recitative style of the 1600s which led to the development of the earliest operas.