In the late 2000s the English label Obsidian emerged as a new venture in the early music label hierarchy, its predominant artist being the vocal group
Alamire under director
David Skinner. Obsidian's releases represent a decent compromise between high quality and modest packaging, being well designed and well recorded, but arriving in a digipak-type case with the booklet kept in a slit. The program for Philippe Verdelot: Madrigals for a Tudor King comes from a highly interesting source, the so-called Newberry Partbooks, a set of five manuscript partbooks made in continental Europe for the benefit of King Henry VIII of which one book has become separated from the rest, though it survives in different hands. This collection is one of the most comprehensive in the realm of the earliest madrigals and was compiled -- if not entirely composed -- by Florentine composer Philippe Verdelot, regarded by some as the most important composer of madrigals before the advent of Jacques Arcadelt.
Of course, a recording of 30 straight madrigals is going to sound monotonous after awhile, and
Alamire is at pains to vary the program. The group tries; as some of these works exist in versions for solo voice and lute, these alternate versions are pressed into service as sung with precision and graciousness by one of
Alamire's sopranos, Lynda Sayce. Other madrigals have appeared in intabulated, purely instrumental form, and Sayce also performs these, in addition to providing the accompaniment to her own solo singing. These inserts are the most intriguing and entertaining things on this disc, but are not the main event; that is left to
Alamire, which sings the madrigals professionally, but without transparency. It would be a lot better if the vocal ensemble had not been recorded in an ambience that is slightly recessed and rather metallic sounding; it is distracting. However, if one is a fan of
Alamire and/or Verdelot and really desires to hear these madrigals, then the sound quality might not matter as much. Bear in mind that in a few cases optional recordings are not available for these pieces, and Obsidian should be commended alone for devoting a whole disc to this composer, whose work usually appears in one or two items per disc in the context of madrigal collections.