Mignarda CDs & MP3s: Online Ordering.

The Delight of Solitariness: Lute Songs and Solos of John Dowland

The Delight of Solitariness was released on December 20th, 2024 on the Prima Classic label. The full digital album is available now in your choice of MP3, Hi-Res Audio (96/24), Apple Digital Master, Amazon Ultimate HD, and Dolby ATMOS formats.

John Dowland’s songs for voice and lute represent the pinnacle of a musical form and tradition that was evident throughout Europe for at least 100 years prior to the publication of Dowland’s First Booke of Songes or Ayres in 1597. Earlier European examples of lute songs essentially represented an arrangement of polyphonic vocal music, assigning the lower parts to be played on the lute, and music for voice and lute in England prior to Dowland’s first fruits mainly consisted of harmonizations of psalms and secular poetry set to well-known ballad and dance tunes. Dowland built upon this foundation and, while retaining the rhythmic vitality of dance forms, added his gift for melody and expressive text setting with a result that is superior to the work of any of his contemporaries.

Having previously recorded two albums of Dowland’s lute songs, we found we were merely peeling away the first layers of the onion with our interpretations of the better-known repertory. The delight of solitariness allowed us the opportunity to explore some lesser-known songs that are every bit as masterful as Dowland’s more familiar chestnuts. The album title is from the song “O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness,” drawn from the posthumously published Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney. The image of forested solitariness is one that appeals to us as artists who dwell in a quieter aesthetic than is afforded by our mad 21st-century existence. Having lived in the woods in shared solitude for a better part of our collaboration as a duo, the image resonates strongly.

Stream or download the full album
Available in your choice of MP3, Hi-Res Audio (96/24), Apple Digital Master, Amazon Ultimate HD, and Dolby ATMOS formats.

Download the full booklet
(PDF booklet with full notes, tracklisting & texts)

Buy a physical CD
With Prima Classic's permission, we are producing a very limited number of physical CDs for our listeners who prefer them. These are available now, directly from us or at our concerts.

Shakespeare's Lutebook

Shakespeare's Lutebook was released on March 4th, 2024 on the Prima Classic label. The full digital album is available now in your choice of MP3, Hi-Res Audio (96/24), Apple Digital Master, Amazon Ultimate HD, and Dolby ATMOS formats.

The music on this album is the result of decades of research and many lecture-recitals performed across the US, with publication of a book of scores bearing the same title. We do not pretend to know whether Shakespeare the playwright played the lute — or whether the historical figure of Shakespeare the playwright existed at all. But we know that the plays were a collaborative effort written and produced in concert with several of the best literary and musical figures of the Elizabethan/Jacobean age, and indication for music in Shakespeare plays was as ubiquitous as any other stage direction. Much of the music appearing in the plays is of a lighter character, suitable for capering and jollification in an outdoor theater. But the historical music Mignarda chooses is typically of a more complex nature, and was likely performed in an indoor theater where subtlety and nuance, an essential characteristic of music for voice and lute, might actually be heard. Our approach is to convey the texts with understanding, choosing historical musical settings when they survive, but employing informed choices of historical style and convention when the original setting is lost to history.

Much of the music appearing in the plays is of a lighter character, suitable for capering and jollification in an outdoor theater. But the historical music Mignarda chooses is typically of a more complex nature, and was likely performed in an indoor theater where subtlety and nuance, an essential characteristic of music for voice and lute, might actually be heard. Our approach is to convey the texts with understanding, choosing historical musical settings when they survive, but employing informed choices of historical style and convention when the original setting is lost to history.

Shakespeare’s Lutebook is a personal selection of music drawn from some of the most iconic plays, and we share our interpretations to offer the listener some insight into the music common to Shakespeare’s time.

Stream or download the full album
Available in your choice of MP3, Hi-Res Audio (96/24), Apple Digital Master, Amazon Ultimate HD, and Dolby ATMOS formats.

Download the full booklet
(PDF booklet with full notes, tracklisting & texts)

Buy a physical CD
With Prima Classic's permission, we have produced a very limited number of physical CDs for our listeners who prefer them. These are available directly from us or at our concerts.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus: Gregorian chant hymns & sequences

“Sequence”, from the Latin sequere, means “to follow”, and in the early Christian church the Sequence always followed the Alleluia. Beginning as a genre of poetry, the Sequence itself is actually a prosa, or the liturgical hymn of the Mass, placing proper importance on the text and its function in the context of the liturgy as an extension of and meditation on the Alleluia verse. The Sequence served an important processional role in the Mass from as early as the 9th century and there were hundreds in use.

Eight years after the release of her first album of a capella Gregorian chant, Donna Stewart responds to many requests for a second solo chant recording. Presenting a mixture of rare and familiar chants, the album features all five of the sequences that remain in liturgical use, including our second recording of a virtually unknown setting of the Stabat Mater Dolorosa text, premiered in its original 2-voice chant setting on Mignarda's 2020 album Mater Dolorosa. The unique melody is found in Amiens, Bibliothèque Centrale Louis Aragon, MS 162 D (circa 1500), a collection of two- and three-part polyphony composed and collected specifically for use by the confraternity of St. Barbara at the Corbie Abbey. We are grateful to Danish musicologist Peter Woetmann Christoffersen for the edition, and for his work in uncovering this beautiful lost chant.

We offer this music, together with Donna's translations, for whatever purpose the listener may choose: as inspiration for meditation and prayer; as a tool to help learn the chants yourself; as a source for reflection and deeper understanding of the texts; or simply for the pure enjoyment of the sound of these mesmerizing ancient words and melodies, whatever your background or faith.

Immediate download of single tracks or full album, in your choice of high-quality formats (MP3, FLAC, and more)

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Doulce mémoire

Doulce mémoire, Mignarda's 15th album, presents our unique point of view on French music current during a time of great upheaval and dramatic change, like today. The title track opens the gate to a sampling of early airs de cour by Adrian Le Roy and moves forward chronologically and stylistically to music of a few decades later—to what is essentially music of the early baroque. The recording is aptly named to celebrate the sweet memories of 18 years as a duo dedicated to music for voice and lute.

Le Roy’s important role in establishing what was to become an immensely popular musical form is little acknowledged today, and most modern recordings of this repertory present the later series of airs published by the descendants of Le Roy and Ballard. Doulce Mémoire probes the earlier examples of airs de cour by Le Roy, moving chronologically to the more familiar style with airs by composers Boësset, Guédron, and Moulinié.

We have taken particular care in presenting the music in an intimate atmosphere that honors its original domestic performance parameters. Music that was meant to be sung in intimate spaces deserves a more intimate sound. In the studio, we are able to record with a close microphone placement for both voice and lute, conveying the warmth of texts and music heard in a small chamber, bringing the listener closer to the original historical experience of the music. How often does a listener get to feel the resonance of a lute as though it were in his or her lap?

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Unquiet Thoughts: English lute songs from the golden age

Unquiet Thoughts, Mignarda’s 14th album, is the capstone of decades of insight into the songs of John Dowland and his peers. Having edited and published Dowland’s complete music for voice & lute in 2020, our new album represents the fruits of the long labor of having touched each note and every word of Dowland’s collected lute songs. To round off the selection of Dowland’s magisterial songs, the album includes a few exceptional works of poetry set by Dowland’s composer-contemporaries Thomas Campion, John Danyel and Robert Jones, concentrating on songs with exquisite poetical texts by some of the best poets of the Elizabethan age.

It is no accident that we chose the very first song from Dowland’s First Booke as the title of our album, as the eloquent term so appropriately describes a genre that pairs an intimate voice with the most personal of instruments to express the secrets of the soul. Unquiet Thoughts is also the title of our blog, which since 2010 has offered our insights and experience of music for voice and lute and its relevance in the modern era.

As always, our interpretations are based upon deep research into historical context and performance, and we have lived with and performed each song for the necessary number of years to uncover the context and meaning of the poetry, giving equal time to musical phrasing and rhythmic gestures. Our interpretations honor the original songs as the popular music of their day: These are popular songs that can come off as mere trifles when performed as though they were light Art Songs of a later era, but are songs full of art when sensitively rendered with directness and intimacy.

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Mater Dolorosa: Music in honor of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

The 130-year-old sanctuary of Immaculate Conception Church in Cleveland provides a perfect setting for Mignarda's annual concert commemorating the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. These concert programs are built upon the little-understood intersection of sacred and secular music of the late 15th century, a theme inspired in part by ideas that are distilled in The Flower of Paradise: Marian Devotion and Secular Song in Medieval and Renaissance Music, by David J. Rothenberg.

The programs vary, as do the wonderful artists who join us each year in mid-September to explore with voices, lutes, harp, or viol the many polyphonic and chant settings of the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, together with masses, motets, and even seemingly secular chansons which reveal themselves to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

This album is a compilation of live recordings featuring Mignarda and our guest artists, all recorded live between 2016 - 2019 at Immaculate Conception Church. Ron & Donna first met at "the Mac", singing together in the schola cantorum for the Latin Mass, and it seems fitting this year, when live concerts are so rare, for us to be able to share a taste of this evocative program in the glorious acoustic that suits our music so well.

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On Behalf of the Muses

On behalf of the Muses, our twelfth album, is a compilation of favorites and most-requested pieces that do not otherwise appear on our recorded programs. The collection includes several live recordings and some pieces that were performed for specific events. Our recorded program ranges from the mid-fifteenth century "Vergine Bella" by DuFay, debuts our own unique setting of Shakespeare's "Come away death", includes our very first recording ever, "No more shall meads be deck’d with flow’rs", and ends with a live impromptu recording of “Bist du bei mir”, a favorite aria from the 1725 Anna Magdalena Bach notebook.

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Magnum Mysterium: Advent & Christmas music for lute & voice

For our second album of music for the Christmas season, we have taken inspiration from the evocative Christmas responsory text, "O magnum mysterium", presenting four unique settings by four different composers, each of them our favorite at any given moment.

This album was recorded live over the period 2014-2016 in two of our favorite sacred spaces in Cleveland, Ohio: The Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, and Immaculate Conception Church. Since there was an absolute minimum of tampering with the recording, bits of the real world filter into our live alternative to the sometimes artificially contrived sound of early music recordings. The result is real music performed by real artists, and we hope it is received in the same spirit in which it is presented.

All of the arrangements here are unique to Mignarda's repertoire. For those who have expressed an interest in learning this music, Mignarda Editions has published an edition of all the music on this album.

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please choose one (includes 1st class int'l shipping)

CD only $15.00 USD CD and score from Mignarda Editions $50.00 USD

Adoro Te: Gregorian Chant Hymns & Marian Antiphons

Gregorian Chant is a rare and precious link to our remote past, but as the embodiment of Christian liturgical practice, it is also a living, breathing form of worship still in use today. The vast repertory of chant both describes the outline and fills in the minute details of the cycle of the liturgical year.

Sacred chant heard in a sacred space has a special transporting quality and has moved hearts, minds and souls for the past few millennia. The chant hymns and antiphons selected for this project have special meaning, and we are very pleased to offer this beautiful, contemplative recording to the many listeners who have requested it.

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John Dowland: A Pilgrimes Solace

Dowland's last book of songs, A Pilgrimes Solace, includes some of the finest, most sensitively wrought music for lute and voice in any language, and certainly represents the pinnacle of the English lute song. Published in 1612, music from this book is a capstone of Dowland's output; a mature artistic summation of one of the greatest composers of English song. These were some of the very first pieces we performed together. Now entering our tenth year as a duo, we return to this music with a mature appreciation for the texts Dowland selected and a deeper understanding of his compositional skill.

A Pilgrimes Solace also includes the earliest published example of English song scored for voice, lute and independent obbligato instrumental parts, and we are are delighted to be joined on this project by two sensitive instrumentalists, guest artists Alex Korolov and Alexander Rakov on treble & bass viols.

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Sfumato: Musica per voce e liuto del Rinascimento Italiano

This profound and passionate interpretation of the music for solo voice and lute from 16th century Italy is the distillation of Mignarda's delving into the art, literature and music of a people, place and period. The composers represented on this CD - from Tromboncino to Marenzio - flourished based on their skill in setting passionate poetry in the present tense to music that contained a measure of art paired with the pulse of the heart. As with visual art of the period, the superficial meaning might be grasped by the casual observer, but these songs offer a richer, more nuanced experience upon closer examination.

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Harmonia Caelestis: 16th century motets by Spanish composers

Our seventh release, this evocative recording highlights the intense devotional imagery of 16th century Spanish composers including Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, and Tomás Luis de Victoria. In returning to the sacred polyphony that brought us together, we have arranged the program as an extended meditation, following the example of our forebears in selecting and adapting the best examples of polyphonic sacred music for private devotions. Originally composed for four or five voices, we present them here in historically sensitive interpretations for solo voice and lute, interspersed with solo lute settings of motets and mass movements.

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Au Pres de Vous: French chansons of the 16th century

Our sixth release, this CD explores the important marriage of music, poetry and dance tunes of sixteenth century France. The vocal music includes our own arrangements of chansons and psalm settings with music by Sermisy, Janequin, Crecquillon, Lassus, and our favorite, Philip Van Wilder, inspired by the eloquent grace and the passionate artifice of poets Marot and Ronsard. The sparkling lute solos, include dances from the publications of Attaignant, and exotic gems from Marco dal l'Aquila and 'il divino' Francesco da Milano.

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Duo Seraphim: Lute songs & solos for Advent & Christmas tide

This very personal selection of music for Advent and Christmastide represents many traditions ranging from the 12th to the 18th centuries. Featuring our own arrangements for lute and voice of many familiar and traditional English, Irish, French, and German carols, juxtaposed with a few favorite Latin motets, Scots tunes, and one Italian lauda set to a very special poem by Petrarch.

Duo Seraphim is dedicated to our many friends and supporters in the hope that it may brighten the spirit of the season for years to come.

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La Rota Fortuna: Chansons & lute solos in honor of Francesco Spinacino, fl. 1507

This beguiling program of chansons and lute solos from circa 1507 is offered as an homage to Francisco Spinacino on the 500th anniversary of his pioneering efforts in publishing the very first printed music for lute: Intabulatura de lauto (Petrucci, Venice, 1507). Themes involving the cyclical nature of Fortune, which permeated poetical and philosophical writings from antiquity onwards, are featured conspicuously in the chanson texts, sparkling and complex rondeaux brilliantly set by the likes of Ockeghem, Busnoys, and the comparatively modern Josquin des Prez. Called "essential listening" by the Lute Society (UK).

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My Lord of Oxenford's Maske: Edward de Vere and his circle

Our third release features 16th century English songs with poetry attributed to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and lute solos with dedications bearing his name. Rounding out the collection are several lute solos and duets from the famous Folger lute manuscript, and familiar favorites sure to please lovers of Shakespeare, Dowland, and all things Elizabethan, including Greensleeves and The Willow Song. Selected by Cleveland classical radio station WCLV as a Choice CD.

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Divine Amarillis: Airs De Court 1570-1640
2009 Winner, Best Classical/Vocal Album, JPF Awards

A selection of the haunting and lovely tunes of the early 17th century French court known as airs de cour. These songs were the pop music of their day, and their poetic themes dwell upon one of three subjects: unrequited love, the sometimes inexplicable interactions of mythological deities, or idyllic scenes of nymphs and shepherds. We add to the mix a few psalm settings that would have been sung and played for private domestic entertainment 400 years ago. This music has proven particularly accessible to modern audiences, and many people have told us that it conjures a moment of serenity in their otherwise hectic lives. Also selected by Cleveland classical radio station WCLV as a Choice CD.

Immediate download of single tracks or full album, in your choice of high-quality formats (MP3, FLAC, and more)

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Mignarda (demo)

Our first release, this demo-length CD included a selection of English and French music by John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Nicolas Vallet, Robert Ballard, and two settings of the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay by composer Orlando Pizzicato.