A Música Secreta de
Vicente
Lusitano
Twenty-three motets, printed in Rome in 1551. The complete Liber Primus Epigramatum, recorded for the first time.
The book
Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, 1551. Sole surviving copy: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.
Vicente Lusitano is arguably the most significant Portuguese composer of his time and, quite possibly, of all time.
His Liber Primus Epigramatum gathers twenty-three motets in five, six and eight parts — the first anthology of music by a Portuguese composer to be printed outside Portugal. Most of them are settings of antiphons and responsories from the Office of Vespers, but their length and contrapuntal complexity make strictly liturgical use unlikely. They belong instead to the world of musica reservata, also called musica secreta: an elite mid-sixteenth-century practice in Italy and southern Germany, in which music of great expressive density was performed by a small group of skilled musicians before a restricted audience.
Since 2022 Arte Minima has studied, performed and recorded the whole collection, reading directly from the 1551 print. The cycle is now complete across three discs.
One
The composer
Born in Olivença around 1520, trained there under one Pero Brujel, and in Rome from January 1551 in the entourage of the Portuguese papal ambassador. In June of that year he won the celebrated theoretical debate against Nicola Vicentino on the tuning of the ancient Greek genera — the episode for which he is still best known, and which has long overshadowed his music.
Two
The sources
Every work is prepared directly from the 1551 print, without the mediation of modern transcriptions. That philological scrutiny extends to theory, instruments and tuning — and it is what led the ensemble to its reading of Lusitano's text underlay, and to the recorders that double the voices throughout.
Three
The recordings
Motets in 6 and 8 parts (Pan Classics, 2025, one disc) and Motets in 5 parts (note 1 music, 2026, a double album of 2h12) together form the first complete recording of the Liber Primus Epigramatum: three discs, more than three hours of music, recorded in Porto, Guimarães and Areias de Vilar between 2022 and 2025.
Latest release · 4 September 2026
Liber Primus Epigramatum
Motets in 5 parts — double album, 2 CD, 2h12 · note 1 music · NO 26008
The sixteen five-voice motets at the heart of the collection: two thirds of the printed book, and the body of works in which Lusitano's command of the polyphonic idioms then circulating in Europe finds its fullest expression. The accompanying essay proposes a new reading of the dedication, identifying the «Jerónimo» of Quid montes with the young poet Jerónimo Corte-Real.
Press
Ici la sagesse domine, dessinant des entrelacs somptueux dans un esprit musica secreta.Diapason ★★★★
The performances are admirable. The ensemble is outstanding.Johan van Veen · MusicWeb International
Videos and photographs · The twenty-three motets, with texts and translations