The earliest of Renaissance wind music was composed by French and Flemish musicians. This music filtered south into Spain and Italy, profoundly influencing the local music in those locals.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, formerly The Philadelphia Renaissance Wind Band, was founded in 1980 with the mission of faithfully performing wind music from the late Medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque periods. In accomplishing mission, the group performs using a wide variety of wind instruments, augmented with percussion and strings, as needed. Piffaro is currently made up of seven Renaissance Music specialists:

• Adam Gilbert- shawm, recorders, bagpipes, capped reeds
• Rotem Gilbert- shawm, recorders, bagpipes, capped reeds
• Grant Herreid- lute, Renaissance, guitar, vihuela, recorders, shawm, percussion
• Greg Ingles- sackbut, recorders, bagpipes, capped reeds
• Joan Kimball- shawm, recorders, bagpipes, capped reeds, director
• Robert Wiemken- shawm, dulcian, recorders, capped reeds, rackett, percussion, director
• Tom Zajac- sackbut, recorders, bagpipes, hurdy gurdy, pipe and tabor, harp, percussion

Piffaro modeled themselves after official court bands of the 14th through 17th centuries while also pursuing the repertoire and instrumentation of the peasant population. The instrumentation is of historical interest. Winds such as the shawm, krumhorn and sackbut may have faded into the library, but their progeny, the oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and trombone are very much with us today. In addition to these antiquities, recorders and bagpipes loom very large as well as the hurdy-gurdy, baroque guitar and drums. Piffaro has recorded for Deutsche Gramophone's Archiv sublabel and is currently recording for Dorian Records. What follows are the current Piffaro releases with a short synopsis.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band - Canzoni e Danze: Wind Music from Renaissance Italy (Archiv Produktion 445 883-2, 1995)

Probably, it is more correct to say this is the wind music of Renaissance North Italy. Much scholarship has revealed the existence of "loud" and "Soft" wind bands appearing on the city scene in the 15th and 16th centuries. Further documentation indicates that these early polyphonists came from Northern Europe. These early players were generally from the transalpine areas of central and southern Germany. Through the evolution of wind music in Italy, Italian families became the standard bearers of the music and local specialists began making matched sets of both "Loud" instruments (uncapped shawns and multiple-bore dulcans) and "Soft" instruments (recorders and capped krumhorns). Bagpipes loom large in the Renaissance wind consorts. Our 21st Century ears cannot help but hear this as almost Celtic on initial listenings, but after awhile, the regional flavor can be divined from the music. This music represents well the evolution of polyphonic instrumental music from its monophonic precursor and demonstrates the aptitude of Western Europe's first school of wind playing.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band - Chansons et Danceries: French Renaissance Wind Music (Archiv Produktion 447 107-2, 1996)

Renaissance French wind bands are less well documented than their German and Italian counterparts. Chansons et Danceries (literally, Songs and Dances) explores both French shawm band that appeared in the French Court during the 16th and 17th centuries and the softer repertoire of recorder and flutes, also common in the Courts. Specific composers include Josquin Desprez, whose counterpoint graced the court of Louis XII. Other represented composers include Nicholas Gombert, Thomas Crecquillon, and Jean Maillard. This music has the fresh air of a pastoral dance; it is music of celebration and adoration. The melodies are simple and unadorned, for the most part. This very simplicity is integral to the charm and appeal of these ancient pieces. The value of such musical restoration is to provide and understanding of musical evolution between the monophony of the 500s to 1000s and the polyphony that came afterward.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band - Los Ministriles: Spanish Renaissance Wind Music (Archiv Produktion 453 441-2, 1997)

Sixteenth Century music in Spain was largely influenced by the ascent of Charles first as the King of Castille and then the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles had been educated outside of Spain and brought with him the sensibilities of Europe outside of Spain. This like much of the wind music performed during this time, the true influence had German, French and Flemish origins. The music was both liturgical and secular, high brow and low brow. As in their previous outings, Piffaro makes an effort to represent all faces of the wind music of Renaissance Spain. Be it the religiously based music of João IV of Portugal or Manuel Cordoso or the dances of Francisco Gerrero or Gaspar Fernandes, this is music that smiles a broad smile.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band - A Flemish Feast: Flemish Renaissance Wind Music (Archiv Produktion 457 609-2, 1999)

Perhaps nowhere else in Renaissance Europe was wind music richer than in the geographic region known today as coastal Belgium. The fertile soil of Flanders bore great art of every stripe and music was no exception. Whether it was the bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy heard by the peasant population in the country or the elaborate shawm bands in the city, or the lute-recorder groups favored by the nobility, Flemish music was every bit as integral to life as the visual arts. The composers of a good bit of this music are not known, fragments of melody that make up the stones that built the foundation of the future music composed by the likes of Pierre de la Rue, Tylman Susato, Jacob Obrecht, and Johannes Ghiselin. This program is perhaps the richest of all of the Piffaro releases.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band - Stadtpfeiffer: German Renaissance Wind Music (Dorian 123456-2, 2000)

Stadtpfeiffer is perhaps the most harmonic/polyphonic of the collections Piffaro has turned their collective attention to. The German tradition in the Renaissance proves to be as rich and varied as in later genre traditions. Additionally, Stadtpfeiffer represents Piffaro's departure from Deutsche Gramophone's Archiv Produktion for the pleasant shores of Dorian Records. Medieval scholarship shows that the best-known wind bands of the Renaissance were from the Germanic Countries. This recording offers an assembly of music from 1470 through 1550 sampling both secular and religious music. The disc ends with eight pieces composed by perhaps the most important German composer of the 16th Century, Ludwig Senfl. In addition to the high kulture of Senfl, much of the German wind bands' repertoire was music for pastoral dances. This disc marries dance and popular from folktunes, winding its way toward Michael Praetorius' Terpsichore. It is nice to see what was going on before the Classical period.

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band - Jean de Castro: Polyphony in a European Perspective. (Passacaille 931, 2000)

Jean de Castro was a 16th Century Dutch composer of polyphonic vocal music that included three-part Latin Motets, Italian Madrigals, and French chansons as well as a variety of instrumental musics. De Castro, along with composers Orlandus Lassus and Josquin des Prez, were instrumental in the evolution of monophony into polyphony. Polyphony in a European Perspective presents a selection of de Castro's works as well as several instrumental and vocals pieces from his regional predecessors and contemporaries, all to illustrate this considerable evolution in western Music. The program is in two parts. The first part illustrates the evolution from Gregorian Chant into two and many-part vocal and instrumental polyphony. The second part sports more elaborate instrumentation behind the vocalist. Here, Piffaro shows up on Orlandus Lassus's "La Cortesia," De Castro's "Qui Dulci Semper" and "Stirpis Ioannes Fiescorum." Piffaro perform in their element, adding a certain authenticity to these period pieces. This music is not merely an artifact, it is a treasure to be preserved.