El Fuego - Sacqueboutiers, Les

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The musicians
In just over a quarter of a century, Les Sacqueboutiers (based in Toulouse) have built up a reputation on the international scene as one of the finest early music ensembles. Considered a reference in the interpretation of seventeenth-century instrumental music, especially that of Italy and Germany, the ensemble has reaped the highest awards for its recordings. When they decided to form Les Sacqueboutiers in 1974, Jean-Pierre Canihac and Jean-Pierre Mathieu were among the pioneers in the rediscovery of early instruments. The quality of their work very soon attracted attention and they took part in groundbreaking recordings, including Monteverdiís Vespro della Beata Vergine with Michel Corboz. Since then, they have worked with many of the finest ensembles, including Les Arts Florissants (William Christie), La Chapelle Royale (Philippe Herreweghe), A Sei Voci (Bernard Fabre-Garrus), Elyma (Gabriel Garrido).

The repertoire
By the time of La Conquista, the Spanish Conquest of America, the ensalada (musical ësaladí) was already well established as a genre. A sort of quodlibet, it had its origins in the medieval practice of singing different texts simultaneously. The great master of the ensalada, who took the genre to a high level of formal perfection and used it as the ideal vehicle for the development of the Christmas song, was the very creative composer and court musician Mateo Flecha the elder (1481-1553), so called to distinguish him from his nephew, known as Mateo Flecha the younger. The ensalada, as described by Juan DÌaz Rengifo in his Arte poética Espanola (1592), is a composition with four-line stanzas in which all sorts of poetic metres are used without any predefined order, according to the poetís fancy. Verses from other poems are often inserted into the narrative, and various languages, not only Spanish, are employed, as well as instrumental sonadas. Naturally the nature of the musical setting is dictated by the variety of the texts. Mateo Flecha the elder was, it seems, the creator of the refined ensalada as described by Rengifo. His compositions present alternations of madrigalist polyphony with purely homophonic passages, and include quotations from many well-known romances and popular songs.

Les Sacqueboutiers
Adiana Fernandez, soprano
David Sagastume, alto
Luis Vilamajo, tenor
Ivan Garcia, bass
Jean-Pierre Canihac, cornett
Philippe Canguilhem, shawm
Daniel Lassalle, sackbut
Laurent le Chenadec, dulcian
Eduardo Egüez, guitar, vihuela, theorbo
Asuko Bouvard, organ
David Mayoral, Florent Tisseyre, percussions

Les Sacqueboutiers - El Fuego

1. El Fuego (Mateo Flecha, 1481-1553)
2. Tiento de 68tono (Correa de Arauxo, 1575-1663)
3. La Justa (Mateo Flecha)
4. Por vida de mis ojos (Juan Vasquez, 1500-1560)
5. En la fuente del Rosel (Juan Vasquez)
6. Tiento de batalla de 88tono (Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia, 1570-?)
7. La Guerra (Mateo Flecha)
8. Conqué la lavaré? (Juan Vasquez)
9. La Negrina (Mateo Flecha)