Sebastián de Vivanco

Capilla Flamenca and Oltremontano

The ensembles Capilla Flamenca and Oltremontano joined forces to record a selection of motets by renaissance composer Sebastián de Vivanco. Vivanco was born around 1551 in Ávila (Spain). Despite never having travelled to Italy, Vivanco had a good understanding of most contemporary avant-garde music trends, which he adapted to fit into Castilian tradition.

His motets allow us to still recognize today the changes that occurred within Spanish music at the beginning of the 17th century.

The collaboration between Capilla Flamenca and Oltremontano is extraordinary. Both in the most intimate as in the most exuberant motets, they evoke all expressive and technical possibilities of the pieces: they underline the more daring harmonies with augmented intervals, they emphasize the sudden rhythm changes that are so typical for the 'seconda prattica', they achieve great clarity in the imitative passages and vocal style. Simple a capella parts are alternated with purely instrumental versions of the motets. Elsewhere, the voices and the instruments merge into a unity in such a way that truly fascinating timbres are formed.