The Second Circle - Love Songs of Francesco Landini

Anonymous 4 | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Performers: Landini, Francesco
• Original Release Date: September 11, 2001
• Label: harmonia mundi
• Copyright: 2001 harmonia mundi usa
• Total Length: 1:01:23
• Genres: Classical/Historical Periods/Early Music
• ASIN: B000QQPTTA
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,148 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars How can anyone make Landini boring? Anonymous 4 does!, November 7, 2001

By 

hinducats "hinducats" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Second Circle: Love Songs of Francesco Landini (Audio CD)

There is no doubt that Anonymous 4 is a highly skilled ensemble. The combination of exceptionally beautiful voices with technical perfection has attracted attention for them from all over the world. As Francesco Landini is my favorite composer of all time, I was quick to purchase this album. However, as with all Anonymous 4 albums, I was totally dumbfounded by the fact that every one of the tracks sounded just like all the others. They sound very pretty, very sweet, totally perfect - but unfortunately, also very boring.

Now we're not talking here about Gregorian chant. This is meant to all sound alike, as its purpose is not to entertain, but to raise the consciousness of the listener. We're not talking about French motets, either - which need to be interspersed with troubadour and trouvère music or other genres of song if they aren't going to eventually sound all the same. This is Landini - a powerful and intense composer whose compositions range in mood from fierce anger to passionate and painful obsession to black despair to sheer joy. But I found more of Landini's power in Gothic Voices' rendition of one song, Nessun ponga sperança, than I heard in this entire album.

It is only Landini's genius that keeps this album from sounding totally insipid. I'm sorry, maybe I am too Hollywood, but I prefer the sounds of groups like Micrologus, Alla Francesca and La Reverdie. Their voices may not be quite so gorgeous, their vocal skills not quite so technically perfect. But they come from a deep intuitive sense of what Landini was trying to express through the song, and, frankly, are fine performers as well as singers.

As a director of a vocal ensemble that is trying to master Landini, I'll listen to this album again and again to get ideas for songs to use in future concerts. But Anonymous 4 need never worry that we'll try to imitate their performance technique. I recommend this album for diehard Anonymous 4 fans, Landini enthusiasts and beginning-to-intermediate students of early music.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, but boring, October 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second Circle: Love Songs of Francesco Landini (Audio CD)

Anonymous 4 has perfect intonation,perfect phrasing, but all this perfection saps the life out of some of this 14th century music. Of course, we will never know what Landini had in mind, but most other early music groups approach this music with a bit more earthiness. I have never been bored with "Ecco la primavera", but was here. Too perfect, lacking, well- spring. Unfortunately, there are few recordings of Landini available, and this one includes many previously unrecorded songs, so an early music aficionado may have to obtain this CD for this purpose.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Landini; the dawn of the Renaissance, April 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second Circle: Love Songs of Francesco Landini (Audio CD)

True to thier artistry the A4 conveys Landini as a courtly master; subtle and flowing. Thier singing radiates with the freshness of May.

Landini can be likened to Duccio as Palistrina to Giotto. Duccio is not a painter of angles or the other-worldy but humans on earth. Yet they are not humanized in the Renaissance sense for they lack rotunda and gravity. Rather, they are delicate and "float" and retain something of the soaring intensity and expressive flavor of Medieval art. Yet they are very human and with Duccio as with Landini one can perceive the dawn of the Renaissance.

Like a sunset to sunrise the CD ends with the piece it began (Echo la primavera) singing it with more expansion and reflection. Not bad since the piece is so short. Perhaps the A4 wants to convey an end of a journey or "My end is my begining."