[ENG]

Manuel Rodrigues Coelho

FLORES DE MUSICA (1620)

THE COMPLETE RECORDING (6 CDS)

A complete recording of Coelho's Flores de musica (1620) on INVENTA RECORDS (UK)

Manuel Rodrigues Coelho was born in Elvas, in the South of Portugal, around 1555 and died in Lisbon in 1635. During his life he held positions as an organist in his hometown and in Badajoz (Spain), later being appointed organist of the Royal Chapel in Lisbon. Flores de musica pera o instrumento de tecla & harpa, his only known work, was printed in Lisbon in 1620. With more than five hundred pages, including twenty-four tentos, one hundred versets and four Susanas (keyboard versions of Orlando de Lasso’s chanson Susanne un Jour), Coelho's Flores de musica is one of the largest music works printed in the seventeenth century. Celebrating the 400th anniversary of its original publication, a new edition in three volumes curated by João Vaz is currently being published by Ut Orpheus (Bologna), under the auspices of ECHO – European Cities of Historical Organs. The research undertaken during the preparation of the new edition led to the idea of a new recording, using all the media prescribed by Coelho – keyboard instruments (organ, harpsichord and clavichord) and harp –, which is now released by Resonus, under the Inventa label.