This publication demonstrates the earliest style of Italian keyboard music, dominated by Willaert and his associates. Many of the pieces are quite interesting, and the whole effort has a freshness about it. This is prior to a truly idiomatic keyboard style, but the polyphonic thinking is correspondingly more advanced.
The performances are appealing. They combine intelligent and sensitive phrasing with technical execution and an original & exciting choice of instruments. Although I might generally like the ensemble performances on various consort instruments, which this music admits, it seems to me to fit naturally on the keyboard.
Todd M. McComb Updated: 12 November 2012