Love as a guiding principle:
Jean Japart:
J’ay pris amours a ma devise

Bartolomeo Tromboncino:
Ostinato vo seguire

Longing & Happiness:
Andrea Gabrieli:
Io mi son giovinetta

John Bennet:
Venus’ birds

Richard Nicholson:
Joan, quoth John

William Byrd:
Galiard

Max Knigge:
Ochtendbede

Earthly Love:
Clemens non Papa:
Entre vous filles

Andrea Gabrielli:
Canzon Francesa deta Frais & Gaillard

Hans Koolmees:
Love Song - Tierelantijntje

Heavenly Love:
Roland de Lassus:
Tota pulchra es amica mea

Hans Koolmees:
Love Song - Visioen

Sadness:
Caludin de Sermisy:
Dont vient cela

Tielman Susato:
Basse dance Dont vient cela

Hans Leo Hassler:
Ach, weh des Leiden

Transience & Farewell:
Thomas Simpson:
Bonny sweet Robin

Cecil Sharp/Benjamin Britten:
O Waly, Waly

Walther Stuhlmacher:
Abschied

Always About Love's opening track J’ay pris amours a ma devise (I have chosen love as my device) is the motto for the album with songs about longing and happiness, sadness and saying farewell. BRISK and Amaryllis Dieltiens have created a programme with music from various different styles and periods on these timeless themes. The poetry is the starting point for the various sections. The instrumental pieces are also all connected to this content, and could be listened to as instrumental poetry, as songs without words.

Alongside 16th and 17th century music from England, France and Germany, the sound of more recent times should not be lacking on this album. The quartet has arranged versions by Cecil Sharp and Benjamin Britten of the English folksong O Waly Waly. “Love is handsome, love is kind”, but love may fade away like the morning dew. Dawn is also used as a metaphor for the beloved in Max Knigge’s Ochtendbede, based on a sonnet by Jacques Perk. Hans Koolmees has written two songs about earthly and heavenly love, based on texts by the medieval mystic Hadewijch and the modern Flemish poet Eva Cox, and finally Walther Stuhlmacher has composed a wordless farewell. However different these worlds may seem, it is always all about love!

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For this recording, BRISK used a consort of cylindrical recorders (modelled on

illustrations in Virdung’s Musica getuscht), a Bassano consort, a Schnitzer consort and various Baroque instruments.