Ricercars, Canzonas, Madrigali passaggiati, Toccatas, Variations

Harpsichord - copy by Denzil Wraight of anon. Italian of ca. 1620 in Russell Collection

Organ - Zeffirini, 1558, Badia, Florence

2 CDs, deutsche harmonia mundi
Please contact Christopher Stembridge regarding availablility

Awarded German Record Reviewers' Prize

Reviews

"It is a fine thing when a meticulous editor of early music has the qualities needed to bring it to life in performances as imaginative as these. Christopher Stembridge is such an editor; and his recording of Mayone earns high praise for its sense of style and for the atmosphere of improvisatory brilliance that pervades it....the general impression is one of admiration for the skill with which the difficulties of Mayone's sometimes idealistic part-writing have been surmounted...Students of this music will learn much from an attentive comparison of Stembridge's edition and performances." Early Music

"The commendable production of both edition and recording means that the editor can advise other performers in a way which is far more effective than supplementing the notation of the edition or adding a lengthy preface. His approach is free. Having laboured over presenting in his edition a text as close to the original as possible, his performance seems to delight in treating that text as flexibly as possible....the absence of a regular pulse reminds me of early 20th-century Chopin playing...the performances here are impressive, and present the little-known composer in an attractive and convincing way." Early Music News

"Stembridge has rendered an important service, as performer and editor:" Music & Letters

"The organist and harpsichordist Christopher Stembridge, a specialist in the field of early Italian keyboard music, successfully brings to life this exciting chapter of music history. This is a living demonstration of the fact that virtuoso inventiveness and exploitation of the possibilities of the instrument was by no means the exclusive domain of the age of Liszt." Fonoforum (1992)