Claros y frescos ríos by Alonso Mudarra (c.1510 - 1580)

Early Music Missouri
presents
Voz, Viol y Vihuela: Fantasies, Songs & Dances from 16th-century Spain
"Claros y frescos ríos" by Alonso Mudarra (c.1510 - 1580) from "Tres libros de música en cifras para vihuela" (1546)
Victoria Botero, soprano
Stephanie Hunt, viola da gamba
Jeffrey Noonan, vihuela
Early Music Missouri’s September 2022 concert featured soprano Victoria Botera in a program of music from Renaissance Spain. She was accompanied by a duo of viola da gamba and vihuela, two instruments especially popular at the Spanish court in the early 16th century.
Best known today for his collection of music for vihuela, Alonso Mudarra (c.1510 - 1580) had a long career as a church musician, principally at the Seville Cathedral. His "Tres libros de música en cifras para vihuela" (1546) features both songs and solo music, all of a remarkably high caliber, as well as several pieces for Renaissance guitar. Mudarra’s song “Claros y frescos ríos” stands as one of the loveliest from the entire repertoire and reflect a sophisticated approach to song setting. Other vihuelists often incorporated a song’s melody into a tablature arrangement but Mudarra set his songs with independent accompaniments from vihuela, more in the style of English lute songs. The text for “Claros y frescos rios” is by the famous Spanish poet Juan Boscán, c. 1490 - 1542).
Translation:
Clear and cool rivers
that serenely follow
your natural path;
Barren mountains around me
stand in a state
of solitude, of great unending sadness;
Birds who have the good sense
to always be singing;
Trees that live
and finally also die,
losing and winning at various times;
Listen to me, listen all of you,
to my voice, bitter, hoarse, and full of pain.