New York City-based period instrument ensemble Sonnambula’s debut album on Avie Records traverses music by several Renaissance composers who were forced to conceal their identities for social, religious, or ethnic reasons. Yet their music transcended the disorder surrounding them, flourishing in the intersection of beliefs and styles. The program features works by William Byrd and Richard Dering, two Catholics composing in Protestant England; Leonora Duarte, a Portuguese-Jewish woman forced to live as a converso (“New Christian”) in Antwerp; Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, whose lost works have re-emerged in our own time; Alfonso Ferrabosco, who emigrated to England; and Salomone Rossi, who unusually set Hebrew texts to Western-style polyphony from his relatively tolerant position in the court of Mantua. Sonnambula, in essence, is a viol consort with upper parts played on violin and an occasional vocal contribution from harpsichordist James Kennerley who also sings tenor.

Passing Fancy: Beauty in a Moment of Chaos
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