Song story  - Sophia, Padouana two Renaissance Songs

Sophia and Padouana are arrangements of two songs inspired by Renaissance music. The first is by Erasmus Widman a German composer from the beginning of the 17th century, the second by Herman Schein also a composer from the 17th century. This music is really surprising for me, the quality of the melodies making it a pretext for improvisation. I had the chance to play and record these two songs in two completely different musical contexts, one in duet not published to date, the other in quartet. The common point beyond the songs themselves is the presence of the great John Abercrombie on these recordings whose duo versions were recorded at his home in New Jersey in 2003, and the quartet versions 2 years later at the Clinton Recording Studio.

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You will find the plays of the two songs in the two respective versions below