Art of Ricercar in 16th Century Italy

Before there was the fugue there was the ricercar, among the earliest genres of polyphonic keyboard music not based on vocal models. The word "ricercar" originally indicated the trying-out of an instrument's strings during the tuning process. The earliest works on this collection of ricercars, by Andrea Gabrieli and the unappetizingly named Flemish-Italian composer Jacques Buus, have the quality of totally free fantasy the name suggests. But this fine release by Dutch organist Liuwe Tamminga, originally released in 1997 and reissued in 2009, offers some gems anyone can enjoy. A few of the composers also wrote madrigals that would be classed as Mannerist, with extravagant text-setting devices and spectacular splashes of dissonance.