Sunday night, the Dutch music consort Camerata Trajectina performed at the National Gallery, with a repertoire of popular Dutch songs from the 17th Century. It was a lovely evening of early music, both sacred and secular, instrumental and vocal, with majestic performances from Saskia Coolen’s recorders, Louis Peter Grijp’s lute and cittern, and the surprisingly versatile — and whimsical — tenor voice of Bernard Loonen. I must make special mention of Saskia Coolen: she is one of those rare recorderists who brings out an unprecedented power and clarity one hardly expects from such a small, humble instrument; so much so that it brought tears to my eyes.

I could write on and on about the rapturous polyphonies of the evening, but instead of exhausting my vocabulary of superlatives, I’ll let you enjoy browsing the raw, cluttered notes I was taking in the programme. Just click on the image below to see the full spread:

(105KB JPG image. The arrows indicate changes in the sequence, and “vdg” stands for viola de gamba.)