The Splendour of Florence with a Burgundian Resonance

• Compère: Dictes moy toutes voz pensées
• Dufay: Nuper rosarum flores
• Ghizeghem: De tous biens plaine
• Ockeghem: Alma Redemptoris Mater
• Ockeghem: Aultre Vénus estes sans faille
• Ockeghem: D’ung aultre amer
• Tinctoris: Virgo Dei throno digna

Following its Gramophone Editor’s Choice album Echoes of an Old Hall, Medieval expert Gothic Voices has recorded The Splendour of Florence, a collection of Franco-Flemish music that was found in or associated with Florence. Occupying pride of place, Dufay’s motet Nuper rosarum flores is widely thought to reflect the proportions of the newly completed dome of Florence cathedral, for which it was written at the cathedral’s consecration in 1436. The other works – by Franco-Flemish composers Ockeghem, Busnois, Tinctoris, van Ghizeghem and others – are taken from a couple of Florentine chansonniers, which in turn document the wide dissemination of their music in the thriving Tuscan city. This album thus showcases Florence in all its splendour and lavishness, a city that proved a creative magnet for the highly-skilled and inventive compositional work of the outstanding composers of the Burgundian tradition.