Release date: 15 November 2024

The Polyphonic Cornett augments a Renaissance wind instrument with live electronics to give it a capability our forebears would have thought akin to magic: the ability to conjure polyphonic textures from a single melodic line. Through this novel mode of performance, Jamie Savan and James Dooley present some of the earliest repertoire for cornett Johann Walters Fugen (canons) of 1542 alongside new music for the instrument. Timothy Robertss Whitenote Canons offer a contemporary modal counterpart to the Renaissance pieces, while Martyn Harrys Palimpsest further explores the meeting point of old and new in an homage to tape delay technology of the 1960s. In Glass Coloured Benjamin Tassie explores the latest in spectral processing techniques to create a richly resonant sound-world that is a hybrid of the historical and the modern.

Jamie Savan cornett
James Dooley electronics

RECORDING CREDITS

Recorded at St Andrews Church, Toddington, 13-14 July 2023
Engineered, mixed and mastered by James Dooley
Cover image by Faye Newton

Catalogue no: BRC026