The viola da gamba enjoyed a degree of popularity in Germany during the 17th century. Not only was it often paired with the violin in compositions in which the two instruments engaged in a dialogue, but it also had it's own repertoire. Johann Michael Nicolai spent most of his life in the service of the court of Stuttgart and left several compositions for ensembles of two or three violas da gamba. Here, L'Acheron presents the complete sonatas and suites, in which the spirit of the Italian sonata is combined with the French suite.
Night falls and Mr. Dowland cannot sleep and seeks release in his faithful orpharion. This, however, is no ordinary night: Orpheus and Arion inhabit the dark reaches of his instrument and awake in an instant as Dowland touches the silver strings with his goldsmith's fingers. They take him on a powerful dreamlike journey, a visionary reverie that is full of surprises and avant-garde soundscapes. The music of the 1600s is gradually transformed into unexpected worlds before Dowland finally sinks into deep sleep.
The motet for solo voice and two dessus, usually two violins, and the cantata with instrumental accompaniment originated in Italy at the dawn of the 17th century. The genre was introduced to France by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and by travelling Italian musicians and rapidly became one of the key showpieces of Italian taste and style. The genre was deployed superbly in the early 18th century by two magnificent composers who were practically contemporaries: Andre Campra and Nicolas Bernier. Campra's natural attraction to Italian music is easily explained, as he was the son of an Italian doctor living in Aix-en-Provence and was also a pupil of the great Poitevin in the same city. Bernier, if we are to believe certain sources, was a pupil in Rome of the Venetian Antonio Caldara, one of the most important composers of his time.
The viola bastarda is much more than just a specific instrument: it is also a technique for playing the viola da gamba that involves developing a vast skill in ornamentation over the entire range of the instrument and covering all the tessituras from bass to soprano. Today's performers are faced with a repertoire compiled by a few virtuosos, while at the same time they have to reconstitute a performing practice that exists only in a few historical treatises. Manon Papasergio has devoted her first recording to this art form and it's development during the exciting transitional period from the Renaissance to the Baroque.
Tomasz Ritter, winner of the Bruges Festival Competition 2024, here follows the traditional overview of Beethoven's musical language and devotes his recital to three sonatas drawn from the three creative periods: op. 2/1 (1795), op. 31/3 (1802) and op. 109 (1820). Ritter has also chosen three instruments that are close to those Beethoven played and reflect the evolution of piano construction: two Viennese instruments copied from originals by Anton Walter and Nanette Streicher, and an original Broadwood piano that is almost identical to the one the famous English piano maker gave the composer.
In 1392, King Charles?VI of France was declared insane. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, his repeated absences left the field open to princes hungry for power and wealth. Thus began three dark decades for the kingdom of France, torn apart by civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians, scarred by the bloody defeat at Agincourt, and ultimately handed over to the English crown in 1420. This is the epic tale Into the Winds brings to life, shedding light on a period as fascinating as it is overlooked, where the contours of a new musical art were already taking shape.
The largest amount of organ music that has survived from earlier members of Johann Sebastian Bach's family was penned by Johann Michael Bach (1648-1694), a cousin of J.S. Bach's father and also the father of Maria Barbara, J.S. Bach's first wife. It is a collection of chorale preludes spread out over the liturgical year, although it is not possible to state that the collection is as ambitious and complete as that of Johann Sebastian's own (incomplete) Orgelbüchlein. The majority of these chorales can be found in the Neumeister Collection; this also contains a number of Johann Sebastian's early works that bear clear links to compositions by his first father-in-law.
This recording explores the musical world of the confraternities of the laudesi - active in the Venice region around 1500 - and their rich repertoire of devotional songs in Italian. These works often celebrate the Virgin Mary and Christ's Passion and bear witness to an aesthetic deeply rooted in popular fervour, frequently combining homophonic writing with a direct expressiveness aimed at the common folk and influenced by Franco-Flemish songs. Le Miroir de Musique take their inspiration from the musicians of the Scuole Grandi of the Venetian Renaissance and recreate a sound world that lay at the crossroads of spirituality and nascent humanism.
The Brussels court attracted some of the greatest composers and organists of the time at the beginning of the 17th century, including Peter Philips, Peeter Cornet, John Bull, and, a little later, Abraham Van den Kerckhoven, all of whom explored new ways of making organs sound. Flemish and Walloon organ builders throughout Europe, and in Spain and France in particular, were building instruments at that time that were to have a profound influence on organ building in those countries.
Pomponio Nenna was born in Bari in 1556 and studied there under Stefano Felis. He then moved to Naples, where he began his career as a composer in a stimulating spirit of emulation; Nenna and Carlo Gesualdo each influenced the other's madrigal style in their treatment of text, dissonance, and chromatic modulation. Nenna's vocal works are complemented here by a number of organ pieces by local composers such as Giovanni Maria Trabaci and Giovanni di Macque, transcribed here for a consort of viols.
Roland de Lassus composed more than eighty masses, of which only two are Requiems; it is not possible to link them to the funerals of any particular individuals. The four-part Missa pro defunctis was published in Paris in 1577. The library of an abbey in Augsburg, however, contains a transposed manuscript copy intended for an ensemble of male voices (tenors, baritones and basses); what is more, this manuscript copy includes a Dies Irae that does not appear in the Paris edition. The five-part Requiem was published in 1589, five years before Lassus's death. Here, Vox Luminis presents both compositions, highlighting the contrasting colours of the two vocal ensembles: the gravity of the four-part Requiem against the light of the five-part setting.
