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Piffaro unveils a long-lost treasure

Philadelphia didn't necessarily harbor intense cultural longing for a musical artifact of 16th-century Spain, but it got one anyway, thanks to Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. And now who would want to be without it?

Piffaro, the Renaissance Band: (from left) Christa Patton, Joan Kimball, Tom Zajac, Grant Herreid, Priscilla Herreid, Greg Ingles, and Bob Wiemken. (KATRYN TALBOT)
Piffaro, the Renaissance Band: (from left) Christa Patton, Joan Kimball, Tom Zajac, Grant Herreid, Priscilla Herreid, Greg Ingles, and Bob Wiemken. (KATRYN TALBOT)Read more

Philadelphia didn't necessarily harbor intense cultural longing for a musical artifact of 16th-century Spain, but it got one anyway, thanks to Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. And now who would want to be without it?

Though the group trafficks in other centuries (even the 21st) and artistic nationalities, the late Spanish Renaissance is where its heart lies - one of the best-ever periods for music, as represented by Piffaro's program "Hidden Treasure: The Lerma Codex" Friday at the Trinity Center for Urban Life.

Though Piffaro is frequently enhanced by the presence of vocalists, the 400-year-old Lerma manuscript, discovered in recent decades at the San Pedro church in Lerma, near Burgos, has parts written explicitly for instrumental ensemble. This sets it apart from the polyphonic vocal music that was presumably interchangeable for voices and instruments.

So with the Lerma Codex, Piffaro was legitimately on its own, and its playing was at a high standard that has not always been maintained in recent seasons. The music was by Francisco Guerrero, Antonio de Cabezon, and, most notable, Philippe Rogier, a great composer most of whose work has been lost. (Authorship was not always meticulously noted in such manuscripts, so it's an eager assumption that a piece only vaguely attributed to "Feliphe" is in fact Rogier.)

As is typical of Piffaro concerts, the music was sequenced to cycle through different instrumental choirs in the group's arsenal of shawms, sackbuts, recorders, krummhorns, and bagpipes, with harpist Christa Patton being kept particularly busy. Though the harp is often an accompanying instrument, several beautiful works by Guerrero and Cabezon reversed its role, with ornate harp writing carrying the music's primary information.

Particularly alluring was a set of madrigals played by a full recorder consort, effectively massing this family of soft-sounding instruments, and creating the impression of the most luxurious musical pillow imaginable. Throughout much of the music, liturgical chant, stately processionals, and even dance echoed in the polyphonic pieces.

But, true to form, Piffaro saved earthier stuff for the last - a series of true-blue dances incongruously included in this manuscript of sacred music - creating an occasion for a classic Piffaro bagpipe blowout.