In the late 1530s, Milanese composer Hermann Matthias Werrecore assembled a collection of sacred music and sent it across the Alps to the publisher Peter Schoeffer in Strasbourg. In making the journey from staunchly Catholic Milan to newly Protestant Strasbourg, the repertoire in question became cross-confessional. What was the purpose of publishing a motet book in a German imperial city where Latin choral singing no longer took place?
Siglo de Oro have collaborated with Dr Daniel Trocmé-Latter (University of Cambridge) to showcase works from this puzzling volume, setting motets by Nicolas Gombert, Jacquet of Mantua, Jacques Arcadelt and Adrian Willaert alongside less familiar names such as Simon Ferrariensis and the enigmatic Johannes Sarton. The resulting recording exhibits the combination of meticulous musicological research and finely crafted, sonorous singing that their previous Delphian albums have led us to expect.
