With this recording, Vojtěch Semerád and the Cappella Mariana continue their exploration of the Central European musical culture of the 15th and early 16th centuries. Initially focussing exclusively on the unknown Flemish composer Johannes Tourout (PAS1124), this second album also features works by his contemporaries Gaspar van Weerbeke and Heinrich Isaac.

When Francesco Bartolomeo Conti came to Vienna in 1701, aged just twenty, he quickly found employment as a theorbo player in the imperial court chapel. His virtuoso skills with the plucked instruments of the time must have been considerable and would have been enough to secure him a good living. But Conti was also a remarkably creative spirit who, on his death in 1732, left behind an impressive quantity of stage works, some of which were widely performed - not least thanks to their original, imaginative instrumentation and their immense variety of expression, ranging from the drastically comic to filigree, vocal-instrumental dialogues and thus encompassing the whole world of "affects".

From the budding blossoms of first love and the heat of passion, to when feelings subside and fade away, “the seasons of love” are the overarching theme of this programme of madrigali concertati by three notable members of the Venetian school: Biagio Marini, Giovanni Rovetta and Giovanni Valentini.

In the 16th and 17th centuries the vast majority of images of cornetto players are depictions angel musicians, often in the company of angelic voices, viols, violins, trombones, organs and harps. Taking this image as a point of departure, Hana Blažíková and I, following the success of our project “Breathtaking”, have developed and recorded a new program around the pairing of the voice and the cornetto. Once again we explore the wonderful way the voice and cornetto can play off of each other in diverse repertoires from the 17th century to the present day.