La Morte della Ragione (The Death of Reason) (CD + Book)

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

Giovanni Antonini and his period instrument group Il Giardino Armonico are names best known to collectors right now for their splendid ongoing survey of Haydn’s symphonies (in partnership with Kammerorchester Basel). But Antonini first made his name as a recorder player, and on his latest disc for the Alpha label he returns to the instrument in spectacular style. He and his colleagues base their programme around ideas discussed by Erasmus of Rotterdam in his famous essay In Praise of Folly (1511), and in particular the premise that madness takes two forms: a negative, aggressive and warlike guise, and a more desirable one that ‘not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares but renders it more jocund’. Of these two sorts, it is the latter that is celebrated the most here, being close to the distracting delights of music itself.

This ‘Death of Reason’ (the disc’s title is taken from an anonymous pavan that forms track 2) opens the floodgates to a true garden of musical delights: instrumental and vocal works, all heard in purely instrumental form as was often the fashion, from the 16th and 17th centuries, accompanied by a sumptuously illustrated CD-size book with dazzling contemporary artwork including Hieronymus Bosch’s strikingly surrealist The Garden of Earthly Delights and the nascent cubism of Luca Cambiaso’s Group of Figures. There are plenty of contemporary quotations from a vast range of sources, on the subjects of reason, madness and music, all of which provide the listener with plentiful food for thought.

The music’s the main thing, though, and it’s a real feast for the ear, ranging chronologically  from John Dunstaple’s elusive Puzzle Canon to a lively baroque Tarantella by Cristoforo Caresana. The works are arranged broadly chronologically only in that the earlier music is concentrated in the first half of the disc, while later works tend to group in the second half. For the most part, however, the thematic threads are gloriously intertwined, so that more speculative works rub shoulders with bracing popular dances, and the listener is invited to construct his or her own narratives.

An exception is a group of pieces all of which stem from Hayne van Ghizeghem’s celebrated chanson De tous biens plaine, heard instrumentally immediately before Josquin Desprez’s own arrangement and then Alexander Agricola’s three ‘cover versions’, which at times approach the pointillistically minimalist thanks to some imaginative pizzicato string playing. There are more wild and wonderful things here in a group of dances by Giorgio Mainerio, and a rousing (and thrillingly played) concluding Galliard Battaglia by Samuel Scheidt serving as a spirited reminder of the ‘warlike’ aspect of madness.

The real treasures here, however, are in the more introspective items: Josquin’s famous lament for Ockeghem, Nymphes des bois, John Baldwine’s 4 Vocum, a Canzon francese by Gesualdo (in a gloriously pliant keyboard performance), and above all a positively experimentalist rendition of Thomas Preston’s Upon la mi re. Amid a blaze of tremendous cornetts and sackbutts, and with some lively string playing too, it’s Antonini who takes centre stage, displaying his virtuosity on an array of recorders, transverse flute, dulcian, and even an anachronistic but highly enjoyable chalumeau.

Wherever the listener drops in to this programme, there’s something to enjoy and to fascinate the ear and mind. For those collectors who still cherish the discs of the late David Munrow, La morte della Ragione will be an especially enticing proposition, building on Munrow’s musical and imaginative legacy, but with all the benefits of modern playing technique and recorded sound. And for anyone interested in the music of the renaissance and early baroque, it’s simply unmissable, with one gem after another. Coupled with the splendid presentation, it’s also a real bargain!