The seven hundredth anniversary of the birth of Petrarch (full Italian name Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374) - poet, the first humanist, and 'Father of the Renaissance' - offers an opportunity to discover a repertoire that has remained almost unknown.  This anthology is intended equally for singers, students, and music lovers, and aims to stimulate exploration of a repertoire that has lain largely fallow.<br>
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The selection presented here, documents the stylistic variety of compositions covering a good two hundred years.  As regards pieces for solo voice and piano, the regular concert repertoire knows only very few musical settings of Petrarch's texts.  However, only poems Petrarch wrote in colloquial Italian have been set to music.  Therefore the large majority of his texts in musical works, and all those presented in this volume, come from his Canzoniere - his 'Book of Songs'.<br>