Search - Domenico da Piacenza, Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, Veronique Daniels :: Alta Danza - Dance Music in 15th-century Italy /Les Haulz et les Bas * V Daniels

A Great Pleasure for both dancing and listening

Deborah Rochefort | Eastern WV | 05/04/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even better than the classic 'Mesura et Arte del Danzare' CD for those who love to dance these 15th C dances! Not only are the tempos excellent for dancing (for instance, the salterello section of Rostiboli Gioioso is really in salterello time)but Les Haultz et Les Bas handles the music in 15th C. style most delicious to the ear. You hear echoes of Dufay, Dunstable, even the Ars Subtilior in the melodic lines chosen to accompany the monodic line found in the manuscripts. Plenty of lovely 15th C. cadences, too. Some of the dances are composed by the group to go with extant dance choreography that have no existing music, and their expertise is such that you can not tell which is the newly composed pieces without looking at the program notes. All the dances I have tried out work well for practice/performance. Furthermore, I just enjoy listening to it; the music is dynamic and interesting - despite being of a single genre - and the shawms and sacbut ensemble parts are especially bright and clear, and beautifully played. Judging by my own family (not exactly a scientific sampling) young children really like this too!"