 Le luthiste Vincenzo Capirola a rassemblé, en 1517, quelques vingt deux tablatures d'une dizaine de compositeurs du XVème siècle. Il s'agit tantôt de transcriptions d'oeuvres chorales, tantôt de danses ou encore de ricercars signés Josquin des Prez, Alexander Agricola, Jacob Obrecht, Antoine Brunel, pour ne citer que les plus célèbres. Sous le toucher délicat et subtil du luthiste, les cordes de l'instrument, copié sur ceux de la Renaissance, déploient une broderie de notes, véritable dentelle sonore qui enlace l'auditeur, l'enveloppent dans ses charmes gracieux et par la douceur du chant, la vélocité de ses mouvements l'emmènent dans un monde aimable, apaisé, au sein duquel la notion du temps s'est relâchée. Tel est laemiracle accompli par ces musiques, souvent considérées comme mineures, elle nous font participer à la grâce qui les a fait naître. Paul Beier, luthiste américain qui vit en Italie, nous donne avec cet enregistrement une première des pièces de ce recueil. Il le fait avec le talent des maîtres de cet instrument, en magicien des sons, en serviteur aimant de ce répertoire qui avait disparu. (Alain Letrun) Vincenzo Capirola is only slightly less of a mystery figure. It has been revealed that he was from Brescia, born into a wealthy mercantile family in 1474 and that he lived a long a life until he was in his mid-seventies. He is last recorded alive in 1548 when he was seventy-four. His parents died while Vincenzo was still young: his father when he was two, and his mother later in his youth. Documentary evidence confirms his presence in Brescia in 1489, 1498, and 1548. He was in Venice in 1517, there has been unconfirmed speculation that he may have travelled extensively in Europe and that he may even have been the same renowned Brescian lutenist who was at the English court of Henry VIII in 1515. The music of this lute book reveals Capirola as a consummate lutenist who had already attained a high level of stylistic maturity. This can be seen in all the musical genres in his book, especially in his intabulations of vocal polyphony that transform their models into attractive idiomatic solo lute music, and in his ricercars that assimilate inherited styles into engaging and coherent rhetorical narrative.
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