The Cape Town Concert Series is proud to collaborate again with the Cape Town Baroque Festival for ‘A Spanish Salad – Vocal polyphony from Renaissance Spain’ featuring the Lutesong Consort. The aptly named genre of ensaladas (literally: salads) flourished for the largest part of the 16th century in Spain, but only ten survive today. These highly entertaining religious allegories tell of redemption from various natural disasters, and contain a mix of references to popular songs, chant and onomatopoeic nonsense syllables in a variety of metres. The ensaladas developed from the sacred villancico tradition: the singing of songs in the vernacular at matins in chapels and cathedrals on feast days, or as theatrical performance spectacles before the Mass.

Lutesong Consort will perform two ensaladas by Mateo de Flecha, as well as sacred and secular villancicos by Francisco Guerrero, Bartomeo Carcères, Juan de Encina and Cristobal de Morales. The vocal works will be interspersed with instrumental pieces by Luis de Milan, Luis de Narvaez, Alonso Mudarra and Diego Ortiz.