Quodlings delight

Qodlings delight : Fitzwilliam virgin book, mirrors & miracles

Quodlings delight could be translated as ‘pleasure of novices, or innocent minds’. It is the title of a play by Giles Farnaby, which is also appropriate for this programme centred on Elizabethan music, which we will rediscover with innocent eyes, ears and fingers, with an open mind...
After their latest disc, which won a Diapason d'Or, the Coloquinte duo, made up of Alice Julien-Laferrière and Mathilde Vialle, has just recorded a project of English music taken from the famous Fitzwilliam Book. They are reclaiming this keyboard repertoire, bringing it to life through the violin and viola.
Great names from this period, such as William Byrd and Sweelinck, will be honoured, their genius transcending the boundaries of an instrument. Byrd's work is considerable and protean. Attached to his name is that of the English virginalist school, which covers the entire period of the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, of which he was the most illustrious representative, if not the founding father.
But Byrd's art cannot be reduced to this role alone, however important it may have been. His work as a composer is divided between the sacred and the secular, he wrote for the church and for the home. As for his keyboard work, some of it is intended for the virginal and some for the organ, although it can also be performed on the lute (the generic term virginal does not therefore refer only to the British rectangular spinet, but to all keyboard instruments).
Bor Zuljan and I, great lovers and connoisseurs of this marvellous music, will join the project to perform original pieces and transcriptions, and improvisations for two, three and four players!