Archive number: 39
Title: Delitae Musicae
Main Album: Hamburger Concerto
Track number: 1
Genre: Elizabethan Instrumental
Studio: Olympic Studios 'B', 117 Church Road, Barnes, London SW13 9HL
Length: 1' 11”
Composer: Anonymous
Musicians: Jan Akkerman – Lute; Thijs van Leer – Recorder
Producer: Mike Vernon
Engineer: Bob Hall
Label: Polydor, Atco, EMI, Red Bullet, JVC, JVC Victor
Date of recording/release: January/March 1974; April 1974. CD – 1998, 2001, 2001, 2002, 2006
Notes: This anonymous 17th Century piece features a simple setting for lute and recorder and sets the mood for the album – a rock album but not as you might expect. The story goes that Akkerman found a manuscript by an old Belgian composer from Antwerp in a London music shop. It was then arranged for lute and recorder with van Leer. It has been suggested that the piece is the work of a J Hove whose lute arrangement of a motet appeared in 1612 as Delitiae Musicae Cantiones. No doubt the Kasteel Groenguerd pictured on the album cover and long used for rehearsals helped create the mood when work began.
