Annibale Padovano (1527-1575) was indeed born in Padua, as his name implies, but worked in Venice and then in Graz, Austria. That made him one of the earlier Italian composers employable at points north rather than the other way around, and he was also a pioneer in the development of the organ toccata. His vocal music was famous in his own time but is underrepresented on recordings, making this release from the quintet Cinquecento welcome. This was choral music, with even the group's own informative notes pointing out that Padovano had a choir of 33 singers in Graz and was always recruiting more. Thus, the madrigalesque performances here are not authentic, but they do shed light on the considerable complexity of Padovano's contrapuntal writing, and they have an edgy quality that gets at what the composer's original audiences must have valued in his music. Sample the rhythmic shifts in the Osanna of the Missa A la dolc' ombra. There are two masses, both based on madrigals of Cipriano de Rore that were complicated to begin with and add multiple layers of their own, with a grand seven-part finale in the Missa Domine a lingua dolosa. The Rore madrigals are included, and the album as a whole repays multiple hearings. The sound from the Kartause Mauerbach in Vienna is excellent, and the cover art from Giuseppe Arcimboldo is contemporary with the music and even relevant to it. This release made classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2024. ~ James Manheim