Tracing the footsteps of Princess Amalie of Saxony, Coloquio 6 revives the spirit of Harmoniemusik, intimate wind ensembles that once brought the most beloved music of the day to audiences everywhere. This musical journey features works by Amalie herself, her mentor Carl Maria von Weber, and captivating arrangements of operas by Mozart and Rossini.
With this release, Ambronay Editions invites listeners to delve into the roots of tango. Bandon+-on virtuoso William Sabatier is joined by baritone Diego Flores and guitarist Ciro Perez for an intimate and poetic journey in the footsteps of the great Carlos Gardel. The arrangements heard here (written by Sabatier) set texts full of melancholy and passion and capture the spirit and emotion of the national music of Argentina perfectly.
Today, French Baroque composer and keyboard virtuoso Louis Marchand is perhaps best known as the performer who failed to take up J.S. Bach's challenge for a musical 'duel.' Unfortunately, this colorful legend has overshadowed Marchand's ample gifts as a composer of organ and harpsichord music. Writing in the 'old fashioned' style of d'Anglebert, he employs a profusion of ornaments which enrich the sustaining power of the sound. In contrast, the music of Rameau immediately imposes a new and revolutionary conception of music. Everything here breathes harmony. The discourse is always deliberately clear, favoring transparency over the bombastic effects of a more sensual harpsichord sound. The Donzelague harpsichord that is featured on this disc provides the link between these two seemingly antithetical composers. Donzelague built his instruments in Lyon and both Marchand and Rameau lived in Lyon at different points in their lives. Christophe Rousset explores the connections and contrasts between these giants of the period.
Virtuoso sonatas, tarantellas and chaconnes from seventeenth-century Italy are performed here with contagious energy by the young ensemble PRISMA, a laureate of the eeemerging programme. The four musicians accompany this colorful programme of variations on the theme of the seasons with their own improvisations. The Gottinger Tageblatt recently wrote of PRISMA: “this truly vivid art of interpretation- together with technical perfection, beauty of sound and balance- brings the impression that every phrase is invented in the very moment.” In May 2015 PRISMA won the Ensemble First Prize at the International Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber Competition in Austria. Following this, they were invited to give concerts at the Biber Festival in Vienna, the Reihe Historischer Musik der Handel-Festspiele Gottingen, and on air with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In 2016, they were admitted to the eeemerging programme with festival residencies in Riga and Ambronay. On stage, PRISMA seeks to recount the music as if telling a story: the musicians speak with their instruments, sometimes supporting each other, sometimes clashing, bringing to life the expressive power of the repertory.
Inspiration, energy and freedom compose the alluring menu of La Vaghezza's very first opus. The five instrumentalists of the young Italian ensemble, recent winners of the EEEMERGING+ scheme, sculpt one by one these magnificent pieces of 17th century Italy, like jewels to be (re)discovered. La Vaghezza is a trio sonata ensemble playing music from the 17th and early 18th Centuries, with a special interest in the unpredictability, extravagance, originality and freedom found in 17th Century Italian music. Their musical interpretations are historically informed, but always guided foremost by their common sensibility as an ensemble and their search for ‘La Vaghezza’, an aesthetic concept which describes a beauty impossible to understand or grasp: like smoke, something calling to be touched yet remaining intangible.
