After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue and Pink collections (a total of 56 reissues), which brought the pearls from the Baroque catalogues of the house labels back into the spotlight, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to rediscover more Baroque treasures and rarities. Like the last series, this fifth installment also opens up to the Classical (Mozart) or Renaissance (Dufay) repertories - recordings that are an integral part of Alpha's identity and history. This series' reissues are performed by the finest musicians in the field; most of these recordings received one or more awards on their first release. The albums come with proper booklets, including notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from many different backgrounds illustrate the covers of the series with their works: this time the main theme is the color white. The present album features Albinoni's Sinfonie A Cinque, Op. 2, performed by Ensemble 415 and Chiara Banchini.

In 1623, when the Thirty Years War was raging, Europe was torn apart by the confrontation between Protestant and Catholic peoples. Schütz and Schein, close friends with a deep-rooted Lutheran faith, were thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of their time when they wrote these works imbued with frugality, humility, even austerity. Yet these two great minds were still driven by a burning passion, paradoxically very attached to Italianate style, which is very evident here. With his ensemble La Tempête, Simon-Pierre Bestion has now become established as one of the most creative interpreters on today’s musical scene, revisiting the repertory, juxtaposing works in varying styles and from different periods, as he demonstrated in his first two recordings for Alpha (The Tempest – Diapason d’Or – and Azahar – Choc de Classica). At the head of an exceptional group of performers, equally at home in medieval and contemporary music, he presents here a ‘rewrite’ for a large and colourful orchestra, featuring a Lebanese singer specialising in Byzantine chant in the role of the Evangelist: a radical new take on the ardent mysticism buried in this music, bringing it unexpected vitality and warmth.

After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue and Pink collections (a total of 56 reissues), which brought the pearls from the Baroque catalogues of the house labels back into the spotlight, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to rediscover more Baroque treasures and rarities. Like the last series, this fifth installment also opens up to the Classical (Mozart) or Renaissance (Dufay) repertories - recordings that are an integral part of Alpha's identity and history. This series' reissues are performed by the finest musicians in the field; most of these recordings received one or more awards on their first release. The albums come with proper booklets, including notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from many different backgrounds illustrate the covers of the series with their works: this time the main theme is the color white. The present album features Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas and Solos for Transverse Flute, performed by Fran�ois Lazarevitch, Lucile Boulanger, Thomas Dunford, and Jean Rondeau.

Le Poème Harmonique is celebrating its twentieth birthday! Two decades of musical discoveries in many different repertoires, musical partnerships, broadcasts, concerts worldwide in every conceivable format, large or small – and many recordings as well. To mark this important anniversary of Vincent Dumestre’s highly-prized ensemble, Alpha has selected twenty albums in a handsomely-produced box-set. Pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, ‘airs de cours’, Italian and English music, make for a musical voyage through 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Here are twenty iconic albums for music-lovers to discover – or rediscover!

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Excerpts of select reviews of previously released volumes included in this set::

Firenze 1616:

This music is not just a piece of archaeological interest; it stands on its own very well in performances as varied, as musical and attractive as those on this disc. Singers are uniformly fine, both individually and in ensemble, with good diction and security of tone. Performances are informed, both musically and historically, as one would expect from such fine musicians.

– MusicWeb International

Love Is Strange:

Under the leadership of Vincent Dumestre the performances are irreproachable, impeccably tuned, and a pleasure from first note to last. The sonics are equally so, though with so many plucked instruments there's an unavoidable level of performance noise and some heavy breathing here and there. All things considered, it's far less than I expected, and not at all bothersome. In all, this is a wonderful disc, even for those who tend to shy away from "early music" collections.

– MusicWeb International

Well known for the intensity and profundity of its interpretations, the Quatuor Danel has made a name for itself on the international classical scene (winning such awards as the Diapason d’Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, and CD of the Month in BBC Music Magazine) in the great cycles that form the basis of the quartet literature, from Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert to Weinberg. Since Russian composers occupy a key position in the Danels’ repertory, it was logical for them to champion the quartets of Shostakovich by recording them complete in 2005. Today Alpha Classics reissues this boxed set, which is among the reference recordings of the composer’s works.

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Review of the original release:

What staggering impact, what a monument! The Borodin Quartet has found its successor. The Quatuor Danel takes up the torch and carries it still further, thanks to the quartet’s sound. This is not just one more excellent complete set; it is, in the true radical and exclusive sense, the benchmark version of the Shostakovich quartets.

– ClassicsToday

This extensive release collects together all the recordings Café Zimmermann has made for Alpha: the fruit of many years of work, research and collaboration. Each separate performance has been realized with the greatest care, both in selecting the interpreting artists and in seeking out the very best acoustic conditions for the recording: the instruments, locations, and ample, well-calibrated sound balance have all been perfectly captured by Hugues Deschaux and d'Aline Blondiau, who from first to last ensured an entirely unprecedented sound transparency for every instrumental line. The combination of these elements has contributed to make Café Zimmermann a landmark among baroque ensembles. Here is a sixteen-album set to celebrate the ensemble’s 20th anniversary!

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Excerpts from select reviews of the previously released volumes included in this set:

Vivaldi: Estro Armonico - Libro Secondo

Any Vivaldi aficionado looking for a worthy Op. 3 addition to their library will need no further encouragement. – ClassicsToday

Bach: Integrale Concerts Plusieurs

The performances are full of contrast, characterfully ornamented, and just plain fun to listen to, particularly if you know the works well. They are also splendidly recorded. Highly recommended, especially for fans of Bach on period instruments.

– ClassicsToday

The one thing to take away from these recordings of the three Brahms string quartets is the deep sense of affection and human warmth which the Belcea Quartet brings to their performances. This is often animated and angst-laden music, seeming as if it is walking on an emotional tight-rope and frequently moving off into bouts of intensely anxious introspection. Indeed, the First Quartet opens with some of Brahms’s most agitated and nervously-charged writing. Certainly, this aspect of the music’s persona is powerfully brought out in these masterful performances, yet there is above it all an overarching sense of poise and spaciousness.

Perhaps this sense of warm humanity and generosity of spirit is most strongly communicated in the Second Quartet. This performance has a very leisurely and spacious quality; one of the clear benefits of the quartets having been recorded individually over several months, allowing the players to treat each one as a stand-alone work rather than attempting, consciously or otherwise, to draw links between them.

Brahms famously destroyed his early string quartets – he claimed that somewhere around 20 never survived his hyper-critical purge - and it was only with the two published in 1873 that he allowed his essays in this most elevated of instrumental genres to be presented in the public arena. They had obviously been started several years earlier, and the work Brahms put in to preparing them for their final version was clearly flavoured by the struggles he had to complete his First Symphony. There is clearly something distinctly symphonic about these two quartets, not least in the vast emotional ground they cover and the huge scope of their construction. Here are highly intelligent performances which present that vastness of scope particularly well and allow the music to unfold with a grandeur which is more suited to this music than the more intimate feel so many string quartets have previously brought to Brahms on disc. Rather than confining it, as it were, to a small cage, the Belceas do not let it roam totally free, but give it a very generous enclosure; there is a sense of tightness of control rather than of excessive restraint. I find particularly effective the feeling of fresh air and expansiveness they give to the rather elusive quasi minuetto and the truly invigorating playfulness they bring to the spiky Trio.

With the Third Quartet of 1875/6, the writing takes on a more intimate and chamber-like feel, with transparent textures and a much lighter use of the quartet medium. Again, because this was recorded at some distance in time from the others, the Belceas fully capture that quality in this excellent and at times deeply affecting performance.

But for me, the high point of this two-disc set is the intense and beautifully integrated account of the Piano Quintet. Here we have a true partnership of equals, with Tell Fellner fitting into the Belcea’s distinctive performing ethic like a hand into a glove, neither dominating nor being subservient, but a true and instinctive chamber partner. This is very vividly displayed in the opening of the slow movement where the piano seems to be such an integral part of the texture that the tendency we sometimes experience in this music for it to sound like a piano concerto with reduced orchestra seems to belong to an altogether different world. Here is a deeply rewarding performance.

– MusicWeb International (Marc Rochester)

On 10 February 1638, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Louis XIII signed the Declaration by which he consecrated 'our own Self, the State, our Crown and our subjects' to the Virgin Mary. The Declaration, whose aim was to ensure peace and restore faith within the kingdom of France, was henceforth to be commemorated at high mass each year on the feast of the Assumption, 15 August. This was the famous Vow of Louis XIII. Olivier Schneebeli decided to compose a musical programme evoking the ceremonies and splendour of the official celebrations of the French king's Declaration. It centres on the Mass for double choir - Missa duobus choris - by Nicolas Formé (1567-1638), sous-maître of the Royal Chapel. Louis XIII valued his works so highly that he had them kept in a special cupboard, to which he alone had the key! This Mass, and two motets by the same composer, also for double choir, are alternated with some of the finest works by great contemporaries of Nicolas Formé: motets by Guillaume Bouzignac (c1587 - c1643), who led a brilliant career as maître de chapelle in various cities of France, and Antoine Boesset (1586 - 1643), who worked at the court as director of the King's Music, and Litanies à la Vierge by Étienne Moulinié (1599-1676), who spent much of his life as director of music to the king's younger brother, Gaston of Orléans. This sparkling programme, showing Baroque in all its splendour, presents a fine panorama of the musical aesthetics that prevailed in France during the first part of the seventeenth century.

Originating in Italy, the trio sonata imposed itself as one of the major musical forms of the 18th century. Having been formalised in sharply contrasting movements by Corelli, it seduced composers who found within it a means to develop their thematic ideas and to free themselves from the framework of the suite of dances in a new aesthetic spirit, that of chamber music. It would normally have been executed by 3 musicians at least, each one playing as best he could the melodic line assigned to him. Bach however, never doing things as everybody else, composed a series of six sonatas for the organ, adapting the chamber music style to this quintessential church instrument. Born in 1985 (year of the tercentenary of Bach's birth ...) Benjamin Alard is already one of the leading figures of the young baroque generation. In 2004 he won First Prize and the Audience Award at the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition and in 2007 garnered First Prize at the Gottfried- Silbermann International Organ Competition in Freiberg. For his first Alpha recording, he plays the grand organ of the church of Saint-Louis en l'Île, where he was appointed in 2005, a German style instrument conceived by Bernard Aubertin, which is the most recent organ to have been built in Paris.

VIVALDI L’Estro Armonico: Book 2 • Café Zimmermann • ALPHA 193 (75:30)

As this CD begins, with the introductory Allegro of the first movement of the Concerto No. 11 of this set, one has the impression of yet another early music group with a sharply etched profile of the music, but as the movement progresses—and morphs into the Adagio spiccato and the further, concluding Allegro—one hears much more in the way of phrasing and excellent changes of dynamics. By the time one reaches the Largo e Spiccato movement, one realizes that Café Zimmermann is indeed one of those very rare historically-informed groups, like Tafelmusik and Fabio Biondi’s Europa Galante, that knows how to play this music with variance of touch and a real enjoyment of what they play. As a result, absolutely nothing on this splendid CD comes across as mechanical or “artificial”-sounding, as if created by MIDI or some other “music”-producing machine.

Concerto follows concerto on this disc as the opening of so many buds into musical flowers, the fragrance of old Italy redolent in the exquisite elegance and at times delicate tracery of this group’s playing. In some of the suspended chords, such as the opening of the Adagio of the Concerto No. 7, Café Zimmermann holds the moment for a brief second or two, a Luftpause, that creates a feeling of anticipation and surprise. We know the chord will be resolved—that was, after all, the prescribed style of the time—but we have no idea how, and when the resolution comes, followed in turn by the joyous Allegro, we are surprised and delighted by what they find in this music.

In fact, I am both happy and very proud of this group that they do not attack the music as if it were “Sing, Sing, Sing” or the latest Hip-Hop tune, as so many early music groups (sad to say, mostly Italian) do nowadays. Assisting them in their presentation of the music is the simply gorgeous recorded sound, which finds a perfect balance between harsh, grating sound and too much ambience. Thus I must give special thanks and praise to recording engineers Aline Blondiau and Hughes Deschaux, particularly to the former who also acted as artistic director and did the mastering of the disc.

Café Zimmermann has rearranged the concertos in this set in order to achieve a better contrast of styles: Nos. 11, 7, 9, then the Cello Concerto in G followed by Nos. 10, 12, the violin-cello concerto in F (“Il Proteo o sia il Mondo al rovescio”), and ending up with No. 8 for two violins. It is in the Cello Concerto that I had my biggest complaint of the disc; the persistent use of straight tone makes the solo instrument sound rather colorless and in fact antithetical to the Italian style in general, but I’ve given up trying to convince these people that consistent straight tone is a modern-day affectation that has nothing to do with how the music was played in the 18th century. (I keep hoping against hope that some day they will all wake up and become heretics of the Religion of Straight Tone—somebody has to!) Fortunately, the overall playing of the group is good enough to overcome this tonal deficiency.

I’m sure that many buyers of this album will want to play it as “brain food” for their babies once Mozart wears thin, or even worse, as musical wallpaper for their next highbrow brunch or dinner party, but if there be any really sensitive musical listeners attending these soirees I’m sure they will gravitate towards listening carefully to Café Zimmermann’s exquisitely shaped and molded performances and away from the small talk of the party. That’s how good this disc is. Highly recommended.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

BACH Missa 1733 • Raphaël Pichon, cond; Eugénie Warnier (sop); Anna Reinhold (sop); Carlos Mena (alt); Emiliano Gonzalez Toro (ten); Konstantin Wolff (bs); Pygmalion • ALPHA 188 (56:57 Text and Translation)

The disc title is a bit misleading to the uninitiated—is this a newly discovered Bach Mass setting? No; it is instead the original version of the Kyrie and Gloria movements for the Mass in B Minor. The work is referred to in the booklet notes as a “fifth Missa Brevis” setting, but is on a far grander scale than those of the four Lutheran Masses, BWV 233-236. Frustrated by his continual difficulties with the Leipzig town council, Bach wrote the work to apply for a position as court composer in Dresden to Augustus III, the newly crowned Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. While the actual position went to Johann Adolf Hasse (already well established there), in 1736 Bach was belatedly granted an emeritus title, the prestige of which gave him greater leverage in his dealings with the Leipzig authorities. Upon compiling the entire B-Minor Mass in 1749, Bach made numerous minor revisions to the original versions of these movements. The rationales for this recording are thus twofold: to make available to the public this earlier version and to complete a set of “Missa Brevis” settings.

In 32:4 and 34:4 George Chien gave enthusiastic reviews to the recordings of the Lutheran Masses by the forces of Pygmalion, a combined period instrument-choral ensemble based in Paris, whose conductor Raphaël Pichon sang in ensembles under the direction of Ton Koopman and Jordi Savall. In the first of those reviews, he complained that “Unfortunately, the notes for this disc have a lot to say about Breugel the Elder’s painting The Fall of the Rebel Angels (which is not reproduced), but precious little about Pichon and/or Pygmalion.” That fault has been modestly rectified here, but unfortunately in the wrong direction. Here the digipak provides color reproductions of the subject painting for this release, the 1445 Creation and Expulsion from Paradise of Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia (1403–c.1482), including more detailed close-ups of two sections, to accompany a four-page essay devoted to it; but apart from a complete list of the instrumentalists and choral members, once again not a word is provided about the ensemble and its conductor.

Even more frustratingly, Pichon provides over eight pages of notes in which he discusses in detail the history of this Missa, the determination from historical evidence of the size of forces to employ for his recording, numerous details about interpretive decisions with respect to tempos, phrasing, articulation, etc., which is all to the good. However, he has next to nothing to say about the matter of single greatest import, which is the primary raison d’etre for this project: the actual differences between this version and that of 1749. Instead, airily referring to information provided by recently published critical editions, he only says: “They show a number of differences compared to the version that is commonly played today, and thus give rise to minor variants....For the first time, the different versions of the Mass in B Minor have been identified and compared, thus giving us a better understanding of the genesis and history of the work. The original aria for bass voice, horn, and two bassoons, ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus,’ in particular, reveals many differences in the vocal parts.” Somebody ought to smack him upside the head!

Fortunately, as suggested by the more informative aspects of Pichon’s notes, far greater thought has been devoted to the performance than to the booklet contents, and overall it is quite a fine version. Be warned that this is the period-instrument approach with a vengeance. Both the strings and choral voices have a rigorously “straight” tone and total absence of vibrato to the maximum degree; the horn part is performed solely by overblowing rather than using any hand stopping in the bell in order to alter pitches; the timpani is played with the explosive aggressiveness of a howitzer; tempos in the faster sections are brisk indeed (the closing “Cum sancto Spiritu” is a mad dash to the finish line); and so on. However, Pichon makes a very satisfying unity of what in lesser hands would degenerate into an exercise in hidebound pedantry. I am particularly taken with the exquisitely delicate use of the theorbo in accompaniment passages, such as for the alto-tenor duet “Domine Deus,” which dances with airy lightness. Of the soloists—who do sing with vibrato!—the two sopranos, male alto, and tenor are excellent; the bass has a somewhat diffuse and unfocused vocal emission, but not to a degree that is a serious detriment. The chorus and instrumentalists are first-rate, as fine as those of any other top-tier period-performance group; the recorded sound is up close and has a welcome degree of resonance that takes the edge off the astringency of this ensemble’s sonic palette. Quite needlessly, the brief Latin text (with English and French translations) is spread out over three pages.

All things considered, this disc is something of a curiosity, primarily of interest to the Bach completist. However, if you have the curiosity and the funds to investigate it, and are partial to this type of interpretive approach, the rewards are considerable, and so I commend it to your attention accordingly. It will be interesting to see where Pichon and Pygmalion choose to go from here.

FANFARE: James A. Altena

BIBER Mystery Sonatas • Alice Piérot (vn); dir; Les Vielleurs de Nuit (period instruments) • ALPHA 38 (2 CDs: 119:44)


In this re-release of a 2004 CD, Les Vielleurs de Nuit (Alice Piérot, violin; Marianne Muller, viola da gamba; Pascal Monteilhet, theorbo; and Elisabeth Geiger, claviorganum) took a free-spirited and poetic view of Biber’s Mystery or Rosary Sonatas , a strong contrast with Andrew Manze’s intensely spiritual one (Harmonia Mundi 907 321, 28:6); John Holloway’s tartly virtuosic one (Virgin Classics Veritas 59551, 14:6); Eduard Melkus’s strikingly dramatic one (Musical Heritage Society 524671, 22:4); and Monica Huggett’s earthier one (Gaudeamus 350 and 351, 28:3 and 28:6). Their continuo group, while small and fairly constant (Melkus’s ensemble varied in size and timbre to suit the dramatic situation), offers, in the claviorganum, a sort of built-in variety that other ensembles can achieve only by the use of organ and harpsichord. Its timbre, as in the “Crown of Thorns” Sonata (VIII) by itself offers dramatic commentary, the novelty of which may be especially convincing to those unfamiliar with the instrument.


Piérot introduces a wide variety of free tempos into the opening of the “Annunciation” Sonata (I); and although she maintains a steadier pace in the sonatas to come, her freedom here serves as a stylistic calling card for the entire cycle. In general, she produces a straightforward, unmannered, though somewhat nasal sound from her violin (or violins—not mentioning the makers, the booklet doesn’t even specify how many violins she’s employed for the cycle—usually the scordatura requires at least three—nor how long it took to make the recordings, which might provide a clue). Of her virtuosity, there can be no question: the flurries of rapid notes in the “Presentation” Sonata (IV) feature exceptionally clean articulation, and the rapid double-stopping in the “Finding” Sonata (V) sounds appropriately sonorous and virtuosic.


Pierre Pascal’s notes take an even weaker line than do many others concerning the Sonatas’ programmatic content: not only does he suggest, as has become common, that they probably don’t illustrate the Mysteries in any specific way, he suggests that the possibility that Biber may have adapted earlier compositions to his purposes shows how “anachronistic” our ideas of the Sonatas’ programs have become. Nevertheless, as in Melkus’s set, Piérot has clearly—and dramatically—marked the transition from the Joyful to the Sorrowful Mysteries. Of course, the appearance of dance movements (such as the Allemanda and Sarabanda in the “Scourging” Sonata, VII) may seem to diminish the intensity of the story line’s most agonizing episodes. The freedom so marked at the beginning of the “Annunciation” Sonata returns in the opening movement (marked Sonata) of the “Carrying of the Cross” Sonata (IX), though the succeeding Courente and Doubles return to dance-like regularity. The briskness of her opening passages in the “Crucifixion” Sonata (X) reinforces the effect, whether or not it’s pictorial; in the variations on its aria, Piérot explores a captivating expressive range, from the comfortingly lyrical to the disturbingly agitated.


In the opening of the “Resurrection” Sonata (XI), the work in which the violin’s two center strings cross over, Piérot once again takes a relaxed view of the printed metric structure; she adopts a stricter view of the hymn tune, with its eventual appearance in the octaves the scordatura facilitates. She begins the “Ascension” Sonata (XII) at a heart-quickening tempo, which introduces special urgency into the ensuing march, with its hunting-call motives. Piérot also begins the “Assumption” Sonata (XIV) with a highly personal, quasi-improvisational account of the Praeludium, and so expands the expressive envelope in her reading of the succeeding Ciacona as to elevate that movement more nearly to the level of Bach’s later masterpiece than even her performance of the “Guardian Angel” Passacaglia (XVI) approaches, at least if realization of expressive possibilities, hidden or otherwise, be taken as a criterion.


Throughout, gambist Marianne Muller converts the bass line into a frequent polyphonic dispute with the violin, increasing the intimacy of the dialogue while it clarifies its import. Listeners should make no mistake about it: the annotator who suggested that nobody before or after Biber has explored the violin’s capabilities so fully wasn’t far off the mark. Taking that suggestion to set a standard, Piérot’s performances approach the goal about as successfully as do the best of the others, including those by Manze, Huggett, Holloway, and, especially, Melkus. In fact, for those seeking a highly personal yet scholarly and disciplined account of the works, in clear and vibrant recorded sound, Piérot’s could be an attractive overall choice.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Despite strong French influence during the eleventh century, artistic and cultural trends did not develop in the same way as on the continent. The fourteenth century underlines the awakening of English singularity: musicians developed a rich and brilliant polyphonic art with specific features: imitation, canon, and the use of typically English intervals such as thirds and sixths.

The Poème Harmonique continues to explore old time folk songs. The works selected appeared or were written down towards the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. They were marked by the renewed interest in popular folk songs and pastoral instruments.

The late Sophie Watillon displays her extreme sensitivity in the finest chamber music of Marin Marais, taken from his books of pieces for viol: La Rêveuse, Dialogue, Plainte, Caprice, Les Folies d’Espagne, and the Tombeau pour Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe he wrote in homage to his teacher. After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue, Pink and White collections (a total of sixty reissues) which gave a new lease of life to the pearls of the Baroque catalogues from our house labels, here are fourteen new titles which offer a chance to discover other treasures, whether Baroque or dating from an earlier or later era. Like the most recent series, this sixth instalment opens out onto the Classical repertory (Mozart by Ensemble 415 and Chiara Banchini) and the Renaissance (Févin by Doulce Mémoire and Denis Raisin Dadre); recordings that are an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. Fourteen reissues performed by the leading musicians in the field, most of which received one or more awards on their original release. Proper booklets accompany the discs, with notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from all over the world have been selected to illustrate the covers, this time with the guiding thread of the color green, a symbol of nature, fertility...and hope!