Musica Antica - Richly filled Spanish salads

Mateo Flecha's Ensaladas are lively Spanish 'musical salads' from the early 16th century. It is a typically Spanish genre in which various languages (Spanish, Catalan, French, Latin, etc.) appear side by side. All kinds of scenes from everyday life are mixed with historical events, folk music, jokes, exclamations and pious reflections on the Virgin Mary. And that mix is like a richly filled salad - hence the name ensalada. They were initially composed for Christmas celebrations, but soon transcended this context. 

The four-part works were increasingly written as entertainment for courtiers and gained great fame at palace parties. Enrique López-Cortón complements the four singers in this concert with trombone, dulcian, vihuela da arco and guitar. He himself takes up the percussion and even a hurdy-gurdy – talk about richly filled! Capella Sancta Maria treats you to three cheerful and light-hearted ensaladas, sparkling from beginning to end. As a counterbalance to this worldly frivolity, they also sing two cantigas by Santa Maria and three villancicos from the fifteenth-century Cancionero de Palacio in this concert.