When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and since the mid 1980s the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “ORFEO 40th Anniversary” 2-album sampler well reflects these two sides of the label by combining highlight tracks of historical recordings with today’s global stars.

When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and since the mid 1980s the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “Legendary Conductors” 10 album set for the anniversary of 40 years of ORFEO label history presents a selection of outstanding recordings with legendary conductors in the true sense of the word.

The instrumentation indications printed on the scores of 18th century violin sonatas were numerous and varied. However, the renewal of baroque performance over recent decades has imposed the uniformity of a continuo bass played on harpsichord and cello, despite the celebrated ‘o’ of Corelli and many of his pupils in: violoncello o cembalo. Though the use of the harpsichord is not to be called into question, other practices were common, particularly in the case of the violin sonatas. And it was unquestionably Tartini and his contemporaries who pushed a new practice to the forefront from the 1740s onwards: to perform the music of these great violinists-composers with an accompaniment of solo cello, which, far from being incidental, has a major role in the score. Other works of this programme render justice to the cello as a solo instrument, fully equal to the violin, with the first veritable duets for both instruments, something very much in vogue in the classical period. This musical itinerary of duets and sonatas for violin and cello offers a new experience, one that is varied and fascinating, with works of great beauty. Yet David Plantier and Annabelle Luis also show us a new sound image: the fullness of only two instruments of the same family is surprising, whilst the infinite colours and the uncommon pliability presented by this combination reveal unforgettable moments of music.

Nearly every large cinema used to house a theatre pipe organ. These were introduced to provide the accompaniment to silent films, but many British installations took place during the sound film era. When silent films gave way to sound films, those cinema organs began to use them to provide a musical interlude between the second feature and main feature films. This caught on and every worthwhile cinema had a pipe organ installed, and this continued until the later 1930s.

This album features two guitar arrangements of Mexican traditional music, performed by the Aleph Duo, made up of Gustavo Camacho Gomez and Eric Trejo Santiago. Gustavo Camacho Gomez holds a Bachelor in Classical Guitar from the Superior School of Music of the INBA. He is currently studying for his Master’s Degree at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, Austria. He teaches at the State School of Music of Tabasco, and is an undergraduate professor at the State Institute of Culture of the State of Tabasco. Eric Trejo Santiago holds a Bachelor in Classical Guitar from the Superior School of Music of the INBA. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Hochschule fur Musik “Hanns Eisler” zBerlin, where he is a beneficiary of the FONCA-CONACYT Scholarship Program for Study Abroad. Along with his classical training, he practices different currents of contemporary music, free jazz, and free improvisation. In 2010, he was part of the free improvisation quintet Synergia Ensemble with which he gave two concerts at the International University Music Festival in Belfort, France.

The male choir of the Optina Pustyn Monastery Department in St. Petersburg was established in 1996 by the blessing of its Father Superior, Hieromonach Rostislav. The choir consists of professional singers who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatoire. The main goal in forming the choir was the cultivation of the heritage of the old Russian Church singing, its sources and different styles, the study of the different types of early Russian polyphony and the introduction of them into modern Church practices. In order to achieve authenticity in transcribing the various types of ancient Russian scriptures the choir members are in contact with scientists researching medieval patterns of Russian singing. The repertoire of the choir, however, reaches beyond the purely ancient repertoire and represents the great riches and variety of the Russian clerical as well as secular choral art. Apart from recording they maintain a busy schedule of concerts in Russia and abroad.