Customer Reviews

Carlos V: Mille Regretz, La Canción del Emperador [Hybrid SACD]

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Essentially, this CD is a sampling of High-Renaissance music (both instrumental and vocal) during the reign of Charles V (AD 1500-1558), a Hapsburg who ruled the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. His reiqn was characterized by the dramatic expansion of the Spanish into the New World -- as well as by continuous warring in Europe.

The "Mille Regretz" title cut is a composition by perhaps the best-known composer of the day, Josquin Deprez:
"It is with great regret that I leave you
And lose sight of your loving face;
I suffer such grief and pain
That you will see my days are numbered."

Accordingly, this album offers, overall, a warm--yet almost elegiac--voluptuousness (a couple Renaissance dances, notwithstanding). Although Amazon provides no sound samples for "Mille Regretz," you can catch its flavor by checking out other albums on the Alia Vox label, like "Ostinato." (They're all . . . wonderful!)