Three women playing twenty recorders lead a magical dance through six centuries of captivating recorder music - from Dufay, Boismortier and Playford to world-premiere recordings of contemporary works.

Musical tears in all their many coloured facets are collected in this recording by Trio Viaggio. Of course tears are primarily associated with weeping, lamentation and melancholy, but their cultural history shows many more, often astonishing, aspects. Tears both symbolise emotions and are visible proof that the affect, or rhetorical emotion of a work of music, has been conveyed. They are unique in that they leave the body: through them, emotions emerge (albeit in liquid, and therefore ephemeral, form) and become visible to others.

In the Christian religion, tears of remorse were long considered to have healing properties; the tears of relics were laboriously collected and venerated. Pope Clemens VIII was once purportedly so overcome by spiritual fervour that multiple cardinals’ administrations were necessary to dry his cheeks. According to an Indian legend, the Hindu god Krishna transformed the tears of a lovelorn princess into pearls. These and numerous other myths, legends and rituals surround the phenomenon of tears. The works on this recording portray tears of contented and painful love as well as those stemming from religious adoration, euphoria and joy.

Trio Viaggio take their listeners on a time-traveling journey through the ages, from the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the Baroque era into the modern world. Their numerous appearances include concerts in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Hungary, at the Düsseldorfer Alstadtherbst, the annual meeting of the “projektgruppe neue musik bremen”, the Züricher Biennale “Spotlights” of the European Recorder Player Society ERPS e.V., the yearly congress of the European Recorder Teachers’ Association ERTA in Cologne, the “Musica insieme Panicale”, and for RAI Italy, as well as radio productions with Ensemble Weser Renaissance and Ensemble Orlando di Lasso.

One of the most important aspects of their work is their continuing collaboration with living composers: Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Joachim Heintz, Ezzat Nashashibi, Sascha Lino Lemke andnd Erwin Koch Raphael have all written works for Trio Viaggio. The ensemble won first prize at both the “Bremer Kammermusikwettbewerb” chamber music competition and the “Young Artists competition at the Internationale Festwoche der Alten Musik Bad Wimpfen”.

Contents:
1. The Queen’s Delight
2. The maid’s delight
3. Ma trédol rossignol
4. Vergine bella
5. Euterpe
6-10. Boismortier - Sonata
11. Une jeune fillette
12. The nightingale so pleasant and gay
13. Compositon 76
14. Susanna fayre
15. Der Wald hat sich entlaubet
16. Entlaubet ist der Walde Bicinium
17. Entlaubet ist der Walde
18. AHÍNNU
19-21. Mattheson - Sonata