In the late 2000s the English label Obsidian emerged as a new venture in the early music label hierarchy, its predominant artist being the vocal group Alamire under director David Skinner. Obsidian's releases represent a decent compromise between high quality and modest packaging, being well designed and well recorded, but arriving in a digipak-type case with the booklet kept in a slit. The program for Philippe Verdelot: Madrigals for a Tudor King comes from a highly interesting source, the so-called Newberry Partbooks, a ...
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In the late 2000s the English label Obsidian emerged as a new venture in the early music label hierarchy, its predominant artist being the vocal group Alamire under director David Skinner. Obsidian's releases represent a decent compromise between high quality and modest packaging, being well designed and well recorded, but arriving in a digipak-type case with the booklet kept in a slit. The program for Philippe Verdelot: Madrigals for a Tudor King comes from a highly interesting source, the so-called Newberry Partbooks, a set of five manuscript partbooks made in continental Europe for the benefit of King Henry VIII of which one book has become separated from the rest, though it survives in different hands. This collection is one of the most comprehensive in the realm of the earliest madrigals and was compiled -- if not entirely composed -- by Florentine composer Philippe Verdelot, regarded by some as the most important composer of madrigals before the advent of Jacques Arcadelt.Of course, a recording...
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