Fretwork's Ottaviano Dei Petrucci: Harmonice Musices Odehecaton is the first recording in 35 years to address its very important topic, the first volume of polyphonic music ever printed.
Ottaviano Dei Petrucci was the inventor of a new and stylish kind of music printing the secrets of which are lost to us, and the first volume issued by his press, Harmonice Musices Odehecaton, was issued in three part-books in 1501, containing 96 pieces. This was a wide cross-section of the popular tunes leading up to that day, including works by
Josquin,
Obrecht,
Heinrich Isaac,
Alexander Agricola, and many anonymous works. As these pieces were untexted, it appears that instrumental performance was what
Petrucci had in mind, though his next volume in 1503 was the first of several devoted to sacred vocal music. The quality of these prints was uncommonly high, and it would take a long time for the still nascent music printing industry to catch up in this regard.