Imitative Textures Choral music by Giaches de Wert - heard by ROBERT ANDERSON 'The singing is of the standard King's College effortlessly produces.'

Nobody knows exactly how the young Wert, born not far from Antwerp in 1535, turned up on the west coast of Italy near Naples, and started learning his trade at the court of Maria di Cordona, marchesa of nearby Padula. From his mid-teens, and indeed for the rest of his life, he was in the north of the country, first at Novellara, and then for some thirty years until his death (1596) in Mantua. There he had Claudio Monteverdi as junior colleague for the last seven of the years he held the post of maestro di capella at the ducal court.

Mantua at the time was both powerful politically and musically ambitious...

BELGIUM

MANTUA

ITALY

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

EARLY MUSIC

HARMONIA MUNDI DISTRIBUTION

CHORAL MUSIC