This recording presents a selection of works by musicians originating in or working in the Croatian lands during the hundred years or so of the High Renaissance and Early Baroque periods from the beginning of the 16th century until the beginning of the 17th century.   This was a time that brought important changes in the relationship between vocal and instrumental music.   Ever since "the autumn of the Middle Ages" the practice of performing written vocal music, both sacred and profane, included the possibility of instrumental accompaniment.   Specific vocal or instrumental settings emerged gradually - stile antico changed and became stile moderno, musica caelestis became musica humana, in a word, earlier musical practices were replaced by new ones.

These changes took place in different milieus in different ways so that from our present-day perspective we do, as often as not, speak of different "national schools" or specific musical forms such as Dutch polyphony, French chanson, German Lied and Italian frottola or madrigal.

The Croatian contribution to these various streams is the subject of this CD.

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Ennio Stipčević