Francesco Landini: Lauds & Contrafacts in 14th Century

The CD is dedicated to the figure of Florentine Francesco Landini, composer, organist, poet, cantor and organ-maker. He was teh greatest representative of the musical style known as Ars nova, born in France in the first half of the XIV century and thence propagated throughout central and northern Italy, especially Milan, Verona and Florence. All the pieces in the program are contrafacta, that is they have a sacred text different from the original secular one. Such a technique of substitution is very old and was used from the XII century on. While listening to the varied pieces of the CD we may immerse our fantasy into the atmosphere of medieval Florence, where ideally a minstrel begins to pal in the street, almost improvising, while inside an oratorio some learned musicians are singing an abstract and quite sophisticated song.