“Sigismondo d’India has a “twin”, a “mirror” in music: Claudio Monteverdi. Both men developed, in parallel, a style that radically changed the history of music. A style inherited from composers such as Luca Marenzio and Carlo Gesualdo, but which d’India and Monteverdi were to transform through the creation of new techniques.
The flute occupies an important place amongst all the instruments celebrated by Vivaldi, il prete rosso, in his concerti. All evidence points to the instrument concerned being the recorder, given that it was still extremely popular in Italy at that time. The single publication of concerti that Vivaldi did not compose for the violin (opus X) was marked by him as being for the flute, as were the Concerti da Camera, in which the instrument rivals the violin, oboe and bassoon in virtuosity. Performing the recorder parts on this new release is Frederic de Roos. Frédéric de Roos is the recorder professor at the Royal Conservatorium of Brussels of which he has also been the director since 2003. After obtaining a university degree in musicology, he focused his studies on the recorder repertoire of the 18th century. He regularly presents conferences and seminars on the language of the baroque and gives courses and master classes both in Belgium and abroad.
This recording, an exploration of sacred and secular music in the New World during the first years of the Baroque period, was made at the conclusion of a successful concert tour that formed part of the Festival de Wallonie 2012. Hanacpachap, recorded here, was the first sacred work in a native language to be published in Latin America.
The emotion-laden text of the Stabat mater has been an inspiration to many composers from the Renaissance onwards and has been set to music in every possible style. Luigi Boccherini, a virtuoso cellist and unquestioned master of chamber music, composed his own setting with a great respect for the text’s character. The quintet that accompanies the solo soprano has the same qualities of balance and homogeneity common to the best chamber works of the end of the Classical period, whilst the blend between voices and instruments is perfect. Boccherini’s profound respect for the text enables him to identify the exact musical character of each and every verse. Born in Belgium, Sophie Karthäuser completed her studies with Noelle Barker at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is one of the world’s finest interpreters of Mozart and has been called a born “Mozartian,” and brings that same clarity of interpretation and flair to the work presented on this release.
For this second part of his anthology of seventeenth-century German harpsichord music, Yoann Moulin takes as his starting point the famous competition organized when Weckmann and Froberger met at the court of Dresden. It was in the 1650s that the influences of the French style were grafted onto models drawn from Italian music. The compositions of this period appear to us in their infinite variety, as illustrated here by the notion of stylus luxurians. Yoann Moulin began his apprenticeship in music with Robert Weddle at the Maîtrise de Caen. There he discovered the harpsichord and studied with Bibiane Lapointe and Thierry Maeder, and after a stint at the Villecroze academy with Ilton Wjuniski he continued his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris in the classes of Olivier Baumont, Kenneth Weiss and Blandine Rannou. At the same time, he discovered the clavichord thanks to Étienne Baillot.
In 1535 Sylvestro Ganassi published in Venice the first treatise developing the technique of the art of ornamentation at an unprecedented level of rhythmic complexity and virtuosity. Playing the recorder, the instrument to which Ganassi devoted his work, Denis Raisin Dadre applies the rules of the treatise to the repertoire that Ganassi practiced, frottole and, above all, the madrigals of Philippe Verdelot. With the ornaments, the music proves to be a living art that practices a constant rhythmic shift, the exuberant virtuosity of improvisations and a 'swing' that would be typical of jazz in the 20th century.
After devoting an album to sonatas by Giuseppe Tartini, for this anniversary year of the illustrious Paduan virtuoso, Evgeny Sviridov offers us a recording of violin concertos. This is his first collaboration with Millenium Orchestra, the ensemble founded by Leonardo Garcia Alarcon in the framework of CAVEMA in Namur. Most of the concertos selected come from manuscript copies made in eighteenth century Germany, where Tartini’s reputation was very high. Evgeny Sviridov has found in these scores cadenzas and ornaments which are very probably in the hand of Johann Georg Pisendel, the great virtuoso violinist of the Dresden court, a friend (and interpreter) of Johann Sebastian Bach! Following a practice that was becoming increasingly common in Germany at that time, one of the concertos has two horn parts in addition to the strings. Of the 130 or so surviving violin concertos, Evgeny Sviridov has selected five.
The majority of the sacred music of Johann Christian Bach, the youngest of the sons of J.S. Bach, was written during the time that he was organist of Milan Cathedral. This album includes first recordings of three sections of the Mass, one of these being a large-scale setting of the Gloria in which the music for the solo voices attains an almost operatic quality. The orchestral writing is also particularly brilliant and has already a classical sonority as well as passages in true concertante style. Four soloists perform here, alongside the Choeur de Chambre de Namur and Les Agremens, Les Agremens, founded in 1995 in Belgium, was created by the Namur Chamber Choir to provide them with the support of a reliable, competent partner for their own Baroque music productions.
The celebration of the Nativity has always been a source of inspiration for composers. The different elements of the evangelical narrative evoke numerous images: tender feelings before the Baby Jesus; the gentleness of his mother, the Virgin Mary; the procession of the three Wise Men; the angelic choirs in Heaven; and these shepherds gathered in the manger. All that appears in the musical repertoire linked to this holiday, as well as the presence of colourful instrumentations and themes connected to folk traditions. This set, released by Ricercar, brings together all these elements, drawn from the repertoires of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
With this set, RICERCAR is beginning the rerelease of one of the jewels in its catalogue: the large collection devoted to sacred music of the German Baroque. Each set will group pieces by theme, the first being devoted to music for Passiontide, Easter and funeral cantatas. This long page in the history of music stretches from Schütz to Bach with the first release of a highly moving live recording of Bach's Johannes Passion by Les Agrémens and the Chamber Chorus of Namur conducted by Guy van Waas.
Alessandro Scarlatti’s Sonate a quattro were published in 1725, the year of his death. With their specific marking ‘senza cembalo’ (without harpsichord), these compositions for two violins, viola and cello appear to be, in a sense, the first string quartets in the modern sense of the term. The program is completed by a few sonatas by his brother Francesco, the ‘London Scarlatti’, and Alessandro’s son Domenico, who had so thoroughly absorbed the contrapuntal tradition instilled in him by his father that some of his sonatas can also be played in quartet formation.
Desprez: Septiesme Livre De Chansons / Visse, Ensemble Clement Janequin
Ricercar
CD
$20.99Jan 08, 2021
2021 sees the 500th anniversary of the death of Josquin Des Pres, the most celebrated composer of his day. Dominique Visse and the Ensemble Clément Janequin are recording a selection of his chansons from one of the most important editions of his works, Tylman Susato’s Septiesme livre de Chansons published in 1545. This edition bears witness to the diversity of Josquin’s chanson writing, but above all to the melancholy and sorrow so present in his works, and is clearly a tribute, as is also evident in the two Deplorations on his death, Musae Jovis by Nicolas Gombert and O mors inevitabilis by Hieronymus Vinders. This recording endeavors to present a Josquin legacy, a post mortem illustration of his chanson oeuvre, in remembrance of his musical genius. It has also enabled Dominique Visse and the Ensemble Clement Janequin to express their profound musical passion for this major Renaisance composer who has accompanied them for more than 40 years.
Although Girolamo Frescobaldi's organ works draw on the polyphonic tradition of the Renaissance, few virtuosos of the early 17th century tackled with as much originality the expressive movement that opened the way for what we consider 'Baroque music'. He transposed for the keyboard this sense of the affect and virtuosity that, in the sphere of opera, overturned all the conventions of vocal music. He recommended flexible playing, freed of any overly strict constraints, insisting on the fact that the musician must play 'con affetti cantabili' (with the affects of singing). Belgian organist, composer, conductor, and opera director Bernard Foccroulle performs these works beautifully. He is currently the director of the Theatre royal de la Monnaie.
Prague has always been regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The name 'Cor Europae' (Heart of Europe) probably dates from the country's early history, in the thirteenth century, when the Kingdom of Bohemia stretched from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. This was a period of great prosperity, especially under King Wenceslaus II Premyslid, and culminated with the reign of Charles IV, who was both King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. Despite the fact that Bohemia was the centre of Europe and benefited from the presence of many scholars (more especially after the foundation of the university in 1348), the local culture also preserved an older tradition there. This can be seen in the beautiful repertory for the Advent and Christmas period that have survived in the sources of Prague Cathedral and the Benedictine abbey of Prague Castle. These sources make it possible to reconstruct the liturgy of the Feast of the Nativity as it was celebrated there, with organa and tropes in the tradition of twelfth-century music, at a time when the new Ars Nova style was flourishing elsewhere in Europe. It is this music that the wonderful voices of the Tiburtina Ensemble bring to life for us.
For his first recording with Ricercar, and as a prelude to an anthology of German Baroque harpsichord music, Yoann Moulin tackles works by two of Sweelinck's most illustrious disciples. The preludes, chorales, fugues, dances and arias with variations of this repertory offer great diversity and enable us to grasp the personalities of the two composers, the introverted Scheidt and the more flamboyant and Baroque Scheidemann. Yoann Moulin began his musical education with Robert Weddle. He discovered the harpsichord later, and studied with Bibiane Lapointe and Thierry Maeder before continuing his education at the Academy Villecroze and the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris. He has since performed in numerous solo and chamber music recitals and at different festivals including the Folles Days of Nantes, the Philharmonie de Paris, La Roque d'Antheron, and more. Recently, he cofounded the ensemble "A Band of Harpsichords," a consort of ancient keyboards that focuses on the music of the Renaissance, both written and improvised.
![D'India: Lamenti & Sospiri [2 CDs]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3964327-2714229.jpg?v=1786709804&width=800)
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