Orlando, a melancholic portrait

"I was flattered by the offer made by Belgian film-maker Joachim Thôme in 2021 to record the soundtrack for his forthcoming documentary dedicated to Orlando di Lasso, but at the same time terrified, realising that the work of this Franco-Flemish composer, which cannot be ignored, had so far remained fairly unknown to me. Especially because he is said to have been the most important musician in Europe in the 16th century, with a body of work comprising over a thousand works!  Despite this, I have to confess that, except for a few treasures that I had collected here and there during my studies or in the course of my various research projects, I had never given much thought to the life and work of this Orlando. So it took me several months to tell Joachim that I was fully committed to working with him on this project together. I took the time, a lot of time, to immerse myself both in Orlando's story and in his work as a whole, almost in its entirety. That's how I came to immerse myself in this music, which at times seemed ageless to me, and which I wanted to revisit with a personal gesture and a contemporary ear, choosing to blend a wide variety of aesthetic, vocal and instrumental worlds.

This album represents an extension of the soundtrack recorded for the film, and in my opinion it includes Orlando di Lasso's finest pieces, the treasures that must be discovered in order to enter the composer's universe, like a great journey. If it is even possible to paint a complete portrait of the composer in just one album.

The construction of this melancholy portrait was therefore inspired by a rather meticulous and musicological work, covering a body of work as immense as it is varied, where we move from the intensity of the sacred repertoires to numerous melancholic songs, or cheerful Neapolitan villanelles, or even some sparkling instrumental pieces... In this way, we can discover Orlando expressing himself in all the musical styles of his time, and in all the languages he mastered: Latin, French, German, Italian, Neapolitan...". Simon-Pierre BESTION