Vyacheslav Artyomov is considered by many to be Russia's greatest living composer. His music is deep, ultimately spiritual and brilliantly crafted, with influences from the Russian symphonic tradition colored by Mahler, Scriabin, Honegger and Messiaen to name a few - but melded into a unique voice. The Divine Art Artyomov Retrospective (which to date has received wonderful reviews internationally) is a mix of new recordings and former Melodiya releases. This is the eleventh album, containing a selection of studio and live concert performances of chamber works for slightly unusual combinations: flute quartet, and saxophones much to the fore. Apart from 'Hymns of Sudden Wafts' and Clarinet Sonata these are all premiere releases. The works are performed by some of the best of Moscow's orchestral and chamber musicians and represent a somewhat lighter (though the term is relative) side to Artyomov's work than his massive, granitic symphonies.
La Raphaele: The Art of Francois Couperin / Lindorff
Affetto Records
CD
$18.99Jun 01, 2018
This release, La Raphaèle: The Art of François Couperin, pays homage to the Italian keyboard master long venerated by the Parisian Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. This reverence also rang true of François Couperin as a musical creator, who was clearly struck by Raphael's art, and so named the first movement of his Huitième Ordre's majestic opening allemande after the artist. World-renowned harpsichordist Joyce Lindorff recreates Couperin's L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin, Sixième Ordre, and Huitième Ordre with exquisite musicianship honed over four decades of researching and studying the styles and methods of the most famous keyboard composers of the 17th through 18th centuries. She is Professor of Keyboard Studies at Temple University where she has taught historical keyboards and performance practice for the past twenty years. In addition to teaching, she has performed across the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan, and China, and has received solo recitalist awards from the Pro Musicis Foundation of France and the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States.
Dutch flautist Frans Bruggen (1934-2014) was one of the main discoverers and champions of the recorder during the twentieth century, and is considered to be one of the artists that made this instrument popular and accessible to young people. His virtuosity and technique were unique, and made his performances of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries unforgettable, showing his audiences that the recorder could be an expressive and evocative instrument. This IDIS release collects a series of very rare recordings of this great artist taken from his archives- none of these recordings have ever been released on modern mediums. This album features the first recording of the Giuseppe Sammartini Concert in F major- a masterpiece of the recorder literature- that was recorded by Bruggen with the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra when he was only twenty-eight years old.
Franois Couperin’s Concerts Royaux (1722) and Les Nations (1726) use open scoring, indicating that they could be performed by whatever instruments were at hand. + He later confessed that he himself preferred to perform them on two harpsichords. + This suggestion had to wait for these two CDs to be taken up in a recording (the second CD is being readied for future release). + Also presented are a number of his Pices de clavecin, also in rarely heard realizations for two harpsichords.
Mozart: Music for Harpsichord 4 Hands / Timpanaro, Policardo
Stradivarius
CD
$14.99$18.99Save 20%Jul 29, 2016
This delightful new release from Stradivarius features keyboard works from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most virtuosic composers for keyboard that has ever lived. In many of Mozart’s first editions, the titles bear the French indication Sonatas pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piani. That is, the works were to be performed on either the harpsichord or the fortepiano. For this release, the rarer option has been chosen: the harpsichord. Basilio Timpanaro and Rossella Policardo make up The Harpsichord Duo. The duo has been engaged in the Italian concert scene for many years, earning public and critical notoriety.
To celebrate his long and fruitful partnership with the Analekta recording label, the great harpsichordist and organist Luc Beausejour delves into his recordings from the past 25 years and proposes three excellent programs. 1 – THE HARPSICHORD Works by Couperin, Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Rameau, and Bach organ music on pedal harpsichord. 2 – THE VOICE Featuring Julie Boulianne, Karina Gauvin, Philippe Sly, Shannon Mercer, and Marie-Nicole Lemieux in excerpts from operas, cantatas, and sacred works with Clavecin en concert. 3 – CHAMBER AND ORGAN MUSIC Bach with James Ehnes, Couperin and Rameau with Clavecin en concert, and organ works.
Greco: Early Neapolitan Cello Music / Malagoli, de Ruvo, Schola Gregoriani Scivas Ensemble
Brilliant Classics
CD
$10.99$13.99Save 20%Jun 25, 2021
The cello was a beneficiary of the remarkable flowering of high culture sponsored by both ecclesiastical and aristocratic patrons in early 18th-century Naples. In 1717, Rocco Greco (1650-1718) became the last appointed player of the viola da gamba in the Royal Chapel dedicated to the treasure of St Januarius, the patron saint of Naples. Both Greco and his colleague Gaetano Francone (c.1650-1717) produced new music for the cello which was suitable for performance within the liturgy of the chapel. Rather as composers of alternatim organ masses wrote elaborations of chant for the organ to be played between the chanted verses of the liturgy, so Greco composed 11 virtuosic ‘diminutions’ which were elaborated from the bass part of vocal motets setting Vespers texts. In performing the diminutions, Malagoli prefaces them with a chanted version of the Gregorian antiphon on which the motets were based. The resulting sound is an Italian-accented equivalent to the viol ‘divisions’ which English composers such as Locke and Simpson were producing at this point. Both lively and melancholic in mood according to the key signature, these brief Diminutions and Passagagli both demand a virtuoso technique from the performer and a degree of imaginative flair in the interpretation of the manuscripts. Matteo Malagoli’s world-premiere recordings satisfy both criteria. As a gambist and cellist, Malagoli has explored the history of bass string instruments for several decades, both in solo recitals and as a chamber musician and a continuo accompanist to several renowned Italian early-music groups. He is ideally placed to bring unrivalled authenticity and style to these new discoveries, which place the cello in an unusual context of sacred music and brings two significant Neapolitan composers to light: an essential album for all early-music enthusiasts.
Bach: Fantasy And Caprice / Jillon Stoppels Dupree
Centaur Records
CD
$17.99Nov 20, 2020
Jillon Stoppels Dupree's love of the music of J.S. Bach began when she was a youngster in a children's chorus. This love has continued to this day, and it is evident in these beautiful performances. Described as “one of the most outstanding early musicians in North America” (IONARTS) and “a baroque star” (Seattle Times), harpsichordist Jillon Stoppels Dupree has captivated audiences in cities ranging from London to Amsterdam to New York. Her world premiere recording of Philip Glass’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra (heralded as “superb” by the New York Times) was released to high acclaim in fall of 2006 on the Orange Mountain Music label. Her playing can also be heard on the Meridian, Wild Boar, Decca and Delos record labels; and she has appeared live on BBC England, Polish National Television, CBS Television and National Public Radio.
Little is known about the life of German violinist and composer Johann Jakob Walther. It is said that he was a violinist in the orchestra of Cosimo III from 1670 to 1674, and afterwards was concertmaster at the court of Dresden. Forty of Walther’s compositions are extant, and are contained in two volumes: Scherzi da Violino solo con il basso continuo, published in 1676, and Hortulus chelicus, published in 1688. This release features his Hortulus Chelicus, which scholars believe was composed between 1650 and 1688. In this collection, Walther wrote at a new, higher technical playing level for the violin. The musicians featured on this recording perform on period instruments- Baroque violin, harpsichord, and Baroque cello.
Founded 1992, the Apollo Ensemble of Amsterdam, under its artistic leader David Rabinovich, has emerged as one of Europe’s leading authentic period instrument Baroque chamber music groups. + Built around a core of key players, the Ensemble expands as needed, even to orchestral size when necessary, and has developed an outstanding reputation for its recovery and reinterpretation of Baroque Jewish music. + This Centaur release features the Ensemble and harpsichordist Marion Boshuizen in three of Bach’s Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, including the alternate version of Sonata VI.
Johann Ludwig Krebs was a highly accomplished organist, harpsichordist and composer of the 1700s, and was highly respected by Bach. The Exercises sur le Clavecin make up the fourth and final part of Krebs' Clavier Ubung. Brad Benighted is a highly sought-after soloist, and he performs these works with great insight.
Sonate 1704 was formed in 2003 by baroque violinist Olivier Brault with Dorothea Ventura (harpsichord) and Mélisande Corriveau (bass viol), with the particular objective of exploring and promoting French music for violin and continuo. Their repertory catalog features more than 100 works, many of which have been first modern performances. 1704 refers to the year in which the first book of French violin sonatas, composed by Francois Duval, was published. While the inspiration for Op. 20, published in 1727, is clearly Italian, the fact remains that French taste intervenes through the use of figures, ornamental possibilities, rhythmic variety, and the use of dance movements such as the tender gavotte, the loure, the passepied or the sarabande.
Strozzi: Sacri musicali affetti / Aurata Fonte Ensemble
Tactus
CD
$29.99Jul 02, 2021
The present release is a world premiere recording of the complete edition of the Sacri Musicali Affetti by Barbara Strozzi, a figure of great importance among the various women musicians of the seventeenth century. Her works went on printed editions for her to be recognized and appreciated as a composer, and not just as an instrumentalist or singer. She was on the Venetian intellectual scene thanks to her connection with the poet and playwright Giulio Strozzi (of whom Barbara is most likely an illegitimate daughter), a fundamental figure in the institution of the Venetian musical theater, and soon appreciated by musicians and writers of cultural circles from Venice. The Aurata Fonte ensemble, specializing in the Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, accompanies the sopranos Anna Simboli and Miho Kamiya with period instruments in the performance of this collection of sacred motets for solo voice where the composer's mastery and refinement is revealed by alternating theatrical and dramatic effects in the name of a marked vocal virtuosity. To be noted at one point the explicit mentioning of the great Claudio Monteverdi, placing by right her work in his musical wake.
Giovanni Battista Serini is a composer all but forgotten today, known exclusively by harpsichordists and pianists thanks only to the three sonatas presented in this recording. In actuality, these works already enjoyed considerable renown at the time of their first publication and were then revised and adapted for the piano and, successively, various new modern editions. Nevertheless, the thorough study of Serini in recent years has revealed him to be quite a unique musical figure of remarkable grandeur. His biography still contains many unknown aspects but thanks to recent discoveries it is being enriched with new elements little by little. These three sonatas were composed by Serini during his Bückeburg period and, like all of his musical output, are in the galant style. They are three authentic masterworks that in some way give us the scope of his compositional talent with the elegance of their writing and the remarkable originality of the themes and their relative development, with solutions, often ingenious and not to be taken for granted.
Brilliant Classics proudly present 5 new albums in this series: QUINTESSENCE, attractively priced compact box sets containing essential core classical repertoire in outstanding performances. Aimed at attracting both the discerning classical connoisseur and the classical newcomer it presents the pillars of classical music: Brahm’s Complete Symphonies & Concertos, Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios, Mozart’s Music for Violin, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Orchestral Suites & Violin Concertos and Schubert’s Piano Trios, String Quintets and String Quartets. World class performers include Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra with Jaap van Zweden, Hungarian Chamber Orchestra with Kristóf Baráti and conductor Heinz Bongartz as well as the Berliner Sinfonie-Ochester with Günter Herbig. A new series at an unbeatable price!
Telemann: Die Kleine Kammermusik / Staropoli, Gusberti, Tomadin
Brilliant Classics
CD
$13.99Sep 18, 2020
Telemann published the Kleine Kammermusik in 1716 in Frankfurt: his second published collection, intended for performance equally with violin or flute. His preface indicates that these pieces share a light and cantabile style particularly tailored to amateur performers on their respective instruments, with relatively narrow intervals in the solo part. Nonetheless, their unfailingly stylish melodies invite performance by professionals such as this trio of Italian musicians, experienced in period-instrument performance and with a catalogue of distinguished albums on Brilliant Classics to their credit. The dance movements in each of the six Partitas are quintessential Telemann: brief, unaffected by false intensity even in the three minor-key works, always infused with a lively appreciation of harmony, beautifully proportioned structures and voice-leading that enables each voice of the counterpoint to be heard at any point. Telemann himself advertised the lack of chromaticism with charming candor: ‘I also cultivated the brevity of the Arias, partly to preserve the energy of the performer and partly to avoid boring the listener's ears due to the length… Finally, I have tried to present something that could meet everyone's taste.’ In this it can be conclusively said that he succeeded. The most recent collaboration of these fine musicians was a Brilliant Classics album of recorder sonatas by Marcello, Vivaldi and Bellinzani (96052) which attracted critical praise both for the rarity of the repertoire and the idiomatic finesse of the performances.
Born in Rome in 1600 in a family of musical traditions, Giovanni Felice Sances owes his musical education first to the Roman environment, and then to the Venetian, strongly influenced by the genius of Monteverdi that in those days was dominating unchallenged. The turning point of Sances life however, occurred at thirty-six when he was hired at the Imperial Chapel of Vienna, first as singer, and then - known for his skills - as main composer and favorite of the emperor; he retained this position until his death, leaving the Imperial Chapel an impressive number of compositions. The Capricci Poetici, printed in Venice in 1649 and dedicated to the noble Nicolò Sagredo, Venetian ambassador to the imperial court and later Doge of Venice, it was just one of the many works that allowed Sances of highlighting his compositional talent through which came to build up over time, the peak of the Imperial Chapel. Irene Morelli and Beatrice Mercuri voices deliver with great property of style the texts of these arias and cantatas, where Sances abandons the modal language typical of the sixteenth century and goes towards a wise use of tonal innovations, highlighting the salient moments of the text and the alternation of the “affetti”.
