Verbum caro factum est (Christmas single)

Description

Two gorgeous Christmas songs from sixteenth-century Italy.

The first is a compendium of settings of the ancient carol Verbum caro factum est, one from Serafino Razzi’s Libro primo delle laudi spirituale (Venice : Rampazetto for Giunti, 1563), and two from Brussels MS 27766, the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript. Both the simple Razzi harmonisation and the more complex trios from the manuscript would have circulated in Florence’s convents in the sixteenth century.

The second is by Francesco Soto de Langa, in his Il quinto libro delle laudi spirituali a tre & quattro voci del Reverendo P. Francesco Soto, Sacerdote della Congregatione dell’Oratorio (Ferrara: Baldini, 1598). Soto de Langa was a member of the Papal chapel, which was resident in Ferrara for at least six months in 1598, during the city’s formal absorption back into the Papal States after the death of the last legitimate Este heir. We have transposed the lowest voice up an octave (mostly), and added continuo on organ and chitarra.