Marco Antonio Cavazzoni (1490-1570)
Tre Recercada, d'après le Manuscrit di Castell' Arquato

Gioseffo Guami (1542-1611)
Six toccatas del Secondo Tuono
Canzon sopra la Battaglia

Giovanni Picchi (1571-1643)
Todescha, Balleto
Ballo Ongaro, il suo Balletto

Antonio Valente (?1520-?1580)
Tenore grande alla napolitana
La romanesca

Cristofano Malvezzi (1547-1599)
Ricercar del Secondo Tuono
Fuga Secunda à 4

Giovanni Maria Trabaci (1575-1647)
Canzona Franzesa Prima
Gagliarda Quarta à 5 alla Spagnola

Anonyme (16ème siècle, Italie)
"Ricercada", Pavana, Saltarello de la pavana
"La Tedeschina", Pavana de la bataglia, Il saltarello de la bataglia

Luca Scandali, orgue (Orgue Onofrio Zeffirini, 1551)
Mauro Occhionero, percussions

Presenting a rare collection of pieces from the earliest days of the Italian Baroque keyboard school, this is an exciting and unusual release from Brilliant Classics. Featuring the period’s leading composers and virtuosi of the organ (Cristofano Malvezzi and Giovanni Maria Trabaci were both employed as organists by the Italian nobility) this release contains some significant early collections of works for keyboard – Intavolatura de cimbalo has some of the earliest offerings from the Naples school, and the Manoscritto di Castell’Arquato is one of the most important collections of Italian keyboard music from the first half of the 16th century. The selected works also contain numerous musical forms that would later evolve into the widespread popular dance forms of the Baroque period, such as the toccata and the fugue. These early forms include the elaborate and technically demanding Recercada and the stately Ballo, of which Marco Cavazzoni and Giovanni Picchi offer fine examples. Experts in the musical heritage of their respective instruments, Luca Scandali and Mauro Occhionero bring their dedication to period performance to this distinctive blend of early instruments. Occhionero demonstrates his skills on an array of traditional percussion, including the Neapolitan tammorra, the darbuka and the djembe, all revealing Italy’s important position, at a cultural crossroads in the Mediterranean. Luca Scandali plays an original late-16th-century organ in the Church of Santo Stefano in Lucca, Italy, built by master organ maker Onofrio Zeffirini. With 30 years of research activity acting as the basis for this recording, the listener is guaranteed an exciting and historicallygrounded musical experience.