La Hispanoflamenca . Bart Vandewege

La Hispanoflamenca is a brilliant ensemble of soloists and boasts specialists in early Spanish and Flemish music. Under the inspirational direction of Bart Vandewege, twenty singers and instrumentalists explore a less well known repertoire. For this concert, they have chosen Spanish and Portuguese Christmas music printed on the presses of Plantyn and Phalesius in Antwerp at the beginning of the seventeenth century - a programme that is balanced at the point where the Renaissance merges into the Baroque. It includes double-choir music for the 'Natalitiae Noctis' by the Portuguese composer Duarte Lôbo (1565-1646), and the popular 'Villancicos de Navidad' by Hispanoflamenca's 'house composer', Pedro Ruimonte (1565-1627), a Spaniard who spent twenty years at the Court of Albrecht and Isabella in Brussels. He began there as a chorister, but was very soon granted the prestigious and high-sounding title of 'Maestro de Mùsica de la Capilla y Cùamara de Sus Altezas Serenisimas'. Rounding off the concert are a number of motets, canciones, villanescas and ditties of Hispano-Flemish origin about diminutive shepherds, sheep and angels and Baby Jesus who has such a thirst. Heart-warming Southern music in the sombre days before Christmas!