Giovanni Antonini _{recorder, dulcian, conductor;} Il Giardino Armonico

‘The senses reign, and reason is dead: from one errant desire another rises,’ wrote the 14th-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch in Il Canzoniere. Hot emotions gradually gained ascendancy over cold cerebral calculation in the Renaissance, challenging centuries of nit-picking theological and philosophical argument. Il Giardino Armonico’s programme leads the listener into a world of music from the early-1400s to the mid-1600s, a time when such popular songs as De tous bien plaine and echoes of sacred compositions found a new home in courtly music making and the sounds of battle were married to instrumental dances.