A Flemish Feast.

A Flemish Feast. Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. Archiv 457 609-2.

By coincidence, on the afternoon I listened to the album Fire-Water, Music of Renaissance Spain with the King's Singers and the Harp Consort on RCA, I followed it with this one, A Flemish Feast, Flemish Renaissance Wind Music from the group Piffaro on DG Archiv. The similarities and differences were striking.

Although the music was composed at about the same time, the 15th and 16th centuries, it is the Spanish music I found most listenable. First, because of the instruments and the recording, the Archiv disc sounds crisper, brighter, and harder. It hasn't the mellow smoothness of RCA's more flowing yet lucent sonics. Second, the instrumentation--lacking voice, of course--is more straightforward, almost prosaic by comparison. Third, the works themselves, although representing a variety of Flemish composers, have a greater degree of sameness about them than their Spanish contemporaries.

The Flemish names included were as unrecognizable to me as the Spanish names had been: Pierre de la Rue, Tylman Susato, Clemens Non Papa, Johannes Pullois, and others. The instruments utilized, usefully illustrated in the booklet, include the shawm family, the recorder consort, the crumhorn consort, dulcian, sackbut, slide trumpet, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, lutes, guitar, harp, drums, and tabor. Yet in spite of their variety, they do not produce as diverse results as the Harp Consort on RCA. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with "A Flemish Feast." I just happened to listen to it following a sublime experience with the King's Singers. Unfair, to be sure. Nonetheless, for those interested in early Flemish music, I can recommend the experience.