Chromatic Renaissance
Release Date: August 2025
Label: Winter & Winter
Award-winning vocal ensemble EXAUDI present their latest recording Chromatic Renaissance – a collection of mesmeric, beautiful and incredibly challenging a cappella music from the 16th century that pushed the boundaries of harmony, tuning and microtonality to the extreme.
Description
The Chromatic Renaissance is a journey into the heart of a forgotten musical revolution. Beginning in 16th-century Italy, composer-theorists like Nicola Vicentino shattered the limits of conventional harmony, dividing the scale into 31 equal notes – not just the usual 12. These revolutionary ideas resulted in intricate microtonal madrigals and highly chromatic works that challenged musical boundaries and delighted ambitious princes and patrons alike.
These masterpieces paved the way for composers like Carlo Gesualdo, Cipriano de Rore, Luca Marenzio and Orlando di Lasso, whose works remain some of the most emotionally intense and sophisticated music of the era.
Since 2017, EXAUDI has been at the forefront of reviving this extraordinary music. To our knowledge, our residency at Aldeburgh Music in 2017 marked the first time in modern history that a vocal ensemble has sung Vicentino’s microtonal works unaccompanied. EXAUDI is still the only ensemble regularly exploring this incredible and fiendishly difficult music.
Orlando di Lasso (1532-94)
1. Timor et tremor
from Prophetiae Sibyllarum
2. Carmina Chromatico
3. I. Sibylla Persica
4. IX. Sibylla Europaea
5. X. Sibylla Tiburtina
6. XI. Sibylla Erythraea
7. XII. Sibylla Agrippa
Vicente Lusitano (1520-c.61)
8. Heu me, Domine
Nicola Vicentino (1511-c.76)
9. Hierusalem
10. Musica prisca caput
Madrigal Fragments
11. Soav’e dolc’ardore
12. Dolce mio ben
13. Madonna il poco dolce
14. Poi che’l mio largo pianto
Orlando di Lasso
15. Anna mihi dilecta
Cipriano de Rore (c.1515-65)
16. Da le belle contrade d’oriente
17. Calami sonum ferentes
18. O sonno
Luca Marenzio (1553-99)
19. O voi che sospirate
20. Solo e pensoso
Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c.1540-1607)
21. Quivi sospiri pianti
22. Itene mie querele
Delivery & returns
Delivery costs: £2 UK, £5 EU & £7 worldwide. Items are usually dispatched within 48 hours.
Full refunds are available up to 28 days after receipt, payable on return of the items.
Contact manager@exaudi.org.uk to set up return delivery.
Reviews
Reviews:
“The writhing, convoluted lines of these pieces, negotiated with exemplary precision and clarity by the seven singers of Exaudi, their voices perfectly matched and balanced, carry their own expressive power. This is a disc that becomes more fascinating and involving the more you listen to it.” – **** Andrew Clements; The Guardian
“Exaudi really are one of the best-situated ensembles to sing this repertoire. They’re known for combining madrigalian mood swings with eye-wateringly accurate tuning; and from the dart-like energy of their opening note of Lassus’s Timor et tremor to his blazing last chord, they clearly know the rules and what to do when a composer bends them. And they offer a great programme: Cipriano de Rore’s famous Calami sonum ferentes – with its opening that rises in semitones until your eyebrows are almost glued to the ceiling – is positively sumptuous, showcasing the lower voices to great effect, with unmissable silver-toned tenors.
Vicentino’s Dolce mio ben has so many microtonal shifts I’m in awe that this ensemble can perform it at all, let alone make it so expressive. Finally, Portuguese composer Vicente Lusitano is a welcome inclusion: his Heu me, Domine also opens with a chromatic rising phrase and contains some of the best singing, musically sure-footed and beautifully blended with the text right at the fore.” – Edward Breen; Gramophone Magazine
“This new CD from the crack seven-voice ensemble EXAUDI offers an unbeatable programme of music from this period. Exploding with unexpected colours, harmonies and new forms, the results are daring and adventurous as boundaries are pushed to their limits by the virtuosic members of EXAUDI, who negotiate the twisting lines with precision and clarity – and impeccable intonation. The results are mesmerising and incredibly beautiful, the more so with repeated listening to this CD as one’s ears become accustomed to the level of chromaticism and microtonality. This music is incredibly difficult to sing but EXAUDI make it sound child’s play. Don’t be fooled by their sleight of voice.” – Early Music Shop (September Album of the Month)
“EXAUDI give new music a sense of substance and permanence, while making the old sound novel, and never more so than in this album exploring music of the “chromatic Renaissance.”
“An EXAUDI album is always a must-listen, put together with impeccable scholarship and musical sensitivity, with beautiful presentation by Winter & Winter. And the singing is intoxicating – although listening to the whole thing straight through might leave you feeling dangerously squiffy.” – Bernard Hughes; The Arts Desk
