Featured Album July 2026: Enzo Puzzovio "Tempro La Cetra"

For this month’s Featured Album we’re introducing something a little different! Enzo Puzzovio is a virtuoso cittern player and he has created an album entirely dedicated to solo cittern music – quite possibly the first recording of its kind. Released last year on the Portuguese label Cetra Records, read on to discover more about this rarely-heard fretted instrument and its music...

Tempro La Cetra
Enzo Puzzovio

OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR JULY 2026

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From the artist's press release:

Using 4-course renaissance citterns, both diatonic and chromatic, this album presents a selection of music giving a picture of both casual and serious repertoire for this wire-strung cousin of the lute. Drawing on numerous manuscripts and printed sources, the cittern was clearly part of widespread music-making in England, Italy, Germany, France and the Low Countries.

The playing of 4-course citterns is divided into two camps: the Italians and English favouring chromatic fretting and its standard b g d’ e’ tuning, whilst diatonic fretting used a g d’ e’ tuning, the latter being preferred in France, the Low Countries and Germany.

Whilst the earliest printed book of music for cittern available to us is Guillaume Morlaye's Quatriesme Livre of 1552, no printed book appeared in England until Anthony Holborne’s Cittharn Schoole in 1597. There are references to three English books between those years, but their whereabouts are unknown, if they were even published. The earliest English manuscript of music for cittern is the Mulliner ms. (c.1560), primarily a collection of keyboard music with a few cittern tunes at the end, interestingly for diatonic tuning on chromatic frets. During that 45 year gap, several volumes appeared from French, Flemish and German presses, each giving us a broad selection of dance tunes, madrigal settings and fantasias, suitable for both beginners and advanced players.

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Why The Early Music Shop loves "Tempro La Cetra":

This month’s featured album showcases a neglected instrument of the Renaissance period: the cittern. Moreover, Enzo Puzziovio’s CD uses not one but two well-sounding instruments, both by Norfolk-based maker Peter Forrester, a 4-course diatonic instrument, and a 4-course chromatic instrument. Both versions are wire-strung flat-backed instruments that feature metal frets; the chromatic version has a fret for every semitone making available all pitches of the chromatic scale, whereas its diatonic cousin omits some frets for simpler open chords. The chromatic fretting enables more complex melodies and permits modulation to other keys. Unlike the lute, the cittern is traditionally played with a goose quill though Puzzovio employs his fingers as well to provide variety. The results throughout are ravishing.

The diversity of repertoire on this recording reveals just how widespread the cittern was in music-making throughout England, Italy, Germany, France and the Low Countries. Puzzovio has scoured manuscript and printed sources, finding popular tunes from the 16th century as well as several important books of music for the cittern which suggest there was a buoyant market for such publications, especially of diatonic cittern music, all full of madrigal arrangements and familiar dance music. While in England the cittern was often made fun of by the writers of the Tudor and Stuart periods – Shakespeare, for instance, made derogatory remarks that it was an instrument only suitable for accompanying tavern ballads – it is clear that several English cittern books contain repertoire that required virtuosic skills, involving complex writing and divisions.

None of the 30+ items in this recital are very long but in their own way these short pieces amount to more than the sum total of their parts. If you want to know about the cittern and its repertoire when its use was at its height in the Renaissance, then look no further than this CD. Informative and personal liner notes by Enzo Puzzovio are an added bonus.

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Tempro La Cetra is available from The Early Music Shop online or in-store!

Click here to order now!

Click below to watch a preview video with clips from the album:

Feeling inspired? Why not check out our J. Wood 4-Course Renaissance Cittern online or in-store now – click here or on the image below to discover more about this instrument, available exclusively at The Early Music Shop.