Juliette Hurel and Hélène Couvert, who have long enjoyed a close rapport on the concert platform and on disc, here celebrate five French women composers at the turn of the twentieth century. Countess Clémence de Grandval was the composer of some sixty songs, of which Saint-Saëns said: ‘They would certainly be famous if their composer did not have what many people regard as the irremediable defect of being a woman.’ Augusta Holmès earned the admiration of Liszt, Wagner and Saint-Saëns. To mark the Universal Exhibition of 1889, she composed a monumental work for more than a thousand musicians. During her studies at the Conservatoire, Mélanie Bonis fell madly in love with a singer, but had to marry a rich industrialist. She later returned to composition and used the pseudonym Mel Bonis, leaving her gender in doubt. Cécile Chaminade displayed extraordinary gifts at a very early age. Bizet called her ‘My little Mozart’. Lili Boulanger received her first music lessons from her sister, the famous teacher Nadia. In 1913, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to receive the Prix de Rome. The word ‘compositrice’ was born!

The practice of composing for two keyboard instruments, very common in the illustrious Bach family, naturally achieved its apotheosis with Johann Sebastian, whose three concertos for two harpsichords are performed here by Olivier Fortin and Emmanuel Frankenberg with the Ensemble Masques. These works, particularly the concertos in C minor, are among the composer’s most admired. They suggest a conception of the concerto specific to Bach: rather than a dialogue between several individual entities, the piece presents a subtle intertwining of melodic lines and blurs the distinction between solo and tutti parts by making them respond to and quote each other, thus illustrating the principle of harmony dear to the composer. Finally, the recording on two harpsichords of the Prelude and Fugue BWV 552, originally composed for organ, is in keeping with the nineteenth-century tradition of transposing Bach’s works with the aim of giving their refined polyphony greater clarity.

After a first album dedicated to Weill, Zemlinsky and Korngold (Alpha272), Kate Lindsey explores here her other repertoire of choice, the music of the eighteenth century. In partnership with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, she has recorded three cantatas focusing on the myth of Ariadne, abandoned on the island of Naxos after helping Theseus kill the Cretan Minotaur by giving him a ball of thread so that he could find his way back through the labyrinth. Alessandro Scarlatti’s Ebra d’amor fuggia (1707) relates Ariadne’s flight, ‘drunk with love’, alongside Theseus, for whom she expresses her tenderness in the magnificent aria ‘Pur ti stringo’. The same year, the young Handel composed his cantata Ah crudel, nel pianto mio, this time with an anonymous abandoned lover as the subject. In 1789, Joseph Haydn also turned to Ariadne, in a cantata for which several orchestrations exist. The one recorded here is by Sigismund Neukomm, Haydn’s pupil between 1797 and 1804. Three faces of disappointed love, brought to passionate life by the mezzo-soprano.

-----

REVIEW:

Her strong and assured voice slips easily into this music, showing impressive technical control and agility throughout. More strikingly, though, she brings her stage experience to bear in dramatic readings whose intelligent responses to the differing nuances of these three pieces are what really make the project spark. The playing of Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen is typically high-quality, and often heartbreakingly attendant to the drama.

– Gramophone

The Kraken Consort was born in 2021 from the imagination of three musicians, friends and colleagues: theorbist Bruno Helstroffer, soprano Chantal Santon Jeffery and tenor Robert Getchell, a Celtic music enthusiast. They share a taste for traditional oral and improvised music, and were keen to team up with instrumentalists with in-depth experience of traditional music: Ronan Pellen (cistre), Brewen Favrau (piper), Sylvain Barou, David Lombardi and Laurene Durantel. For their debut album, Kraken Consort revisit the Irish and Scottish musical tradition.

Haydn2032, the ambitious project of recording the complete symphonies of Haydn, has been placed from the start under the artistic direction of Giovanni Antonini, with two ensembles, Il Giardino Armonico, which made the first four volumes, and the Kammerochester Basel, to which this fifth volume and the next two are assigned. Another characteristic of the edition is that each time Haydn is set in perspective with another composer; here it is Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-92): ‘Kraus was the first man of genius that I met. Why did he have to die? It is an irreparable loss for our art. The Symphony in C minor he wrote in Vienna specially for me is a work which will be considered a masterpiece in every century’, said Haydn in 1797. Though he long remained forgotten after his death, Kraus made an active contribution to the movement of poetic renewal called ‘Sturm und Drang’ or ‘Geniezeit’ (time of genius) because such artists as the young Goethe broke free of all tradition to follow their hearts alone. When Haydn called Kraus homme de genie, in French, he probably had this context in mind. The two composers had met in Vienna in 1783.

Classical Music

Leonardo Garc�a Alarc�n writes: "The memories of my childhood in Argentina always bring me back to the singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, synonymous with shared family moments... Serrat's poetry and music around a barbecue in Argentina; "De vez en cuando la vida" made me cry as it has made millions of people cry in Latin America, Spain and elsewhere... Joan Manuel Serrat is part of our life, he is our Jacques Brel!... Or, if we project ourselves back to the sixteenth century, he is in a sense our little Camerata Fiorentina, that movement of Italian poets and musicians in Florence. Serrat has allowed the whole of Latin America and Spain to reappropriate the works of it's poets... He has also been synonymous with freedom and the struggle against dictatorial regimes. His song "Mediterraneo" is one of the emblematic pieces of his career. It is almost a hymn that has special resonance nowadays... I asked my good friend Quito Gato to arrange these songs for our ensemble, Cappella Mediterranea. The orchestration retains typical seventeenth-century instruments: recorders, cornett, violins, viola da gamba, cellos, lutes, harp, harpsichord, organ, with some percussion and a double bass. These period instruments allow us to travel back in time and compare Serrat's romances with the Ensaladas of Mateo Flecha (1481-1553), the polyphony of Guillaume Dufay, and a composition by Juan Cabanilles that recalls a Bach Passion. The Xacaras, a satirical genre from the Spanish Golden Age dialogues with Serrat's works, as does the M�sica callada of the Catalan composer Frederic Mompou, transcribed here for the harp."

Closing the distance between classical music and Broadway, between the old world and the new, this album is born out of a stunning encounter between two performers. Kate Lindsey is an opera star whose career is skyrocketing. She has stunned audiences with her performances of Mozart and Purcell, but grew up steeped in the music of Broadway, from Gershwin to Cole Porter. Baptiste Trotignon is a multie award-winning jazz pianist who plays with big names like Brad Mehldau or Tom Harrell, but who has a long-held interest in classical music, even composing a piano concerto for Nicholas Angelich. Together, they have produced a rich and varied programme around the songs of Kurt Weill, from Nanna's Lied to trouble Man, as well as the classics from The Threepenny Opera and Lost in the Stars. This journey through three European languages brings the listener to the very beginnings of jazz, and features all-new arrangements and deft improvisations by pianist Baptiste Trotignon. Lindsey and Trotignon also pay homage to three composers who, like Weill, all emigrated to the United States: Alma Mahler, Zemlinsky and Korngold. London-based American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey joins Alpha Classics for several recordings over the coming years.

Mozart’s Requiem is a supreme masterpiece of the history of music and a work inextricably bound up with the Mozartian legend. Now Alpha’s recording of it under the direction of Teodor Currentzis is given a new lease of life in a vinyl reissue. A fascinating, gripping reading, served by a magnificent line-up of soloists – Simone Kermes, Stephanie Houtzeel, Markus Brutscher and Arnaud Richard – and the excellence of the Siberian chorus and orchestra MusicAeterna. This was one of the first recordings of the Greek conductor, based in Russia since the 1990s, who is now an emblematic and iconoclastic figure in the interpretation of Mozart and of classical music in general.

Bruno Helstroffer writes of his new release: "It's a logbook, the one I've never really kept. My years of blues/rock and early music mingle here; the thousands of kilometers travelled with that theorbo of mine, the cities and the countryside, the railways, the skies, the scents, the lights; but above all, the music of the people. 'Partite variate sopra quest'aria francese detta l'alemana' is a tablature by Piccinini of an aria also called La Monica. In North America in the late nineteenth century, railroad hoboes carved their vagabond pseudonym along the tracks, which they called their 'moniker'... 'Corrente VI sopra l'alemana,' by the same composer, is the energetic counterpart to the noble and meditative allemande. 'Like a Belfry' is taken from a dream... Rosemary Standley has set her words to the melody and sings them. J. H. Kapsberger's 'Toccata nona' is associated here with Perivoli Blue. Perivoli is a village in the south of the island of Corfu. 'Thanks Toumani' expresses my fascination with Mandingo music. Bellerofonte Castaldi's 'Arpeggiata a mio modo' was one of my first challenges on the theorbo. Erik Satie's 'Gnossienne no.1' arrived under my fingers without warning and made a place for itself here by fitting in so naturally that I couldn't say no to it. This is the piece chosen by my photographer friend Richard Dumas to make the video clip of the album. With Kapsberger's 'Bergamasca,' a dance from Bergamo in Italy, the theorbo becomes a festive and agile instrument. 'A Tea with Bach' is an arrangement of the Minuet from Bach's Cello Suite no.1. The 'Toccata Undicesima' serves as the introduction to an improvisation: Vos luths. And invokes India."

After the huge success of her first album for Alpha, Crazy Girl Crazy (Alpha 293), which received a Grammy Award, a JUNO Classical Award in Canada, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, FFFF in T�l�rama and DIAMANT in Op�ra Magazine and was BBC Music Magazine CD of the Month, Barbara Hannigan is back with her long-time collaborator, the Dutch pianist and great interpreter of twentieth-century music Reinbert de Leeuw, for a recital exploring the roots of modern music, with the composers who left their mark on the turn of the twentieth century: Hugo Wolf (Mignon Lieder), Arnold Schoenberg (Vier Lieder op.2), Anton Webern (F�nf Lieder nach Gedichten von R. Dehmel), Alexander Zemlinsky (selected lieder), Alma Mahler (Die stille Nacht etc.) and Alban Berg (Sieben fr�he Lieder). From what has been called the Second Viennese School, an incredible mix of musicians, painters, writers and other artists frequenting salons and caf�s, a completely new musical language was born. Barbara Hannigan is especially fond of this repertory and has long championed it. Of course, we think of Berg and his unforgettable Lulu: 'The artist who sings', as journalists often like to describe her, embodies this music with her legendary dramatic sense, making each of these lieder a story in itself, even a mini-opera...

For its eighth volume, Haydn2032 invites us on a musical journey that takes the Balkan route. Of all the ‘Viennese Classical School’, Joseph Haydn is certainly the composer closest to folk music, first because he spent his early years in the countryside and also because, unlike his colleagues who worked in the urban centers of the Habsburg monarchy, Haydn was in contact with Croats, Roma and Hungarians throughout his life. These influences were omnipresent in his music, to the delight of Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy and his guests, but by some accounts were not to the taste of many music theorists in Germany. Haydn gave his Symphony no.63 in C major the title of ‘La Roxolana’, from the famous sixteenth-century sultana who was the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent after having been his slave. As usual, Giovanni Antonini, who is reunited here with Il Giardino Armonico, juxtaposes Haydn’s music with that of another composer. The natural choice here was Béla Bartók, who is represented by his Romanian Folk Dances, composed in 1917.

Under the title Gli impresari, The Impresarios - i.e. The directors of the theatre troupes that Nikolaus I, Prince Esterh�zy engaged to perform in his opera houses - this album gathers together some of the orchestral works by Joseph Haydn linked by their origin and their reception; they were originally conceived as theatre music, before their metamorphosis into symphonies. The period from 1772 onwards, when Karl Wahr was responsible for the summer theatre programme at Esterh�za, saw the peak of the multidisciplinary collaboration taking place between the court music directed by Haydn and companies engaged from outside. At the end of 1775 and the beginning of 1776, while Joseph Haydn was occupied in transforming his music for Coll�'s comedy into a symphony for concert performance, Karl Wahr was enjoying enormous success with his theatrical entertainments in the ballroom at the theatre in Salzburg. It was there, on 3 January 1776, that Thamos, King of Egypt was staged, a heroic drama whose choruses, musicologists now believe, were composed by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; for this Salzburg performance he also composed four instrumental entr'actes (recorded for this release) as well as a melodrama and a Don Giovanni-esque descent into hell.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, London experienced an artistic golden age, with the arrival of many foreign musicians and the proliferation of theatres and concert halls wher e audiences came to listen to the stars of the moment. One of these musicians was the Italian Nicola Matteis, who arrived around 1660 and became the sensation of the London music scene. Purcell was only a child at the time and there is no record of their meeting, but it is very likely that he was familiar with Matteis's works, including his Ayres, recorded here for the first time in a version for four-part consort. Exploration of this London effervescence yields to some surprising discoveries, such as the music of a mysterious composer who published trio sonatas around 1715 under the name Mrs Philarmonica. Le Consort presents the very first recording of this highly interesting music, probably influenced by Corelli and very likely written by a woman composer who, given the conventions of the time, made use of a pseudonym. Her true identity is unfortunately unknown to us.

For the seventh volume in this collection devoted to Mozart by the younger generation of soloists, the award-winning Austrian pianist Aaron Pilsan records the concerto K.459 with the ORF Radio Symphonieorchester in Vienna. French horn player Nicolas Ramez records one of his favourite concertos, the first of Mozart's four horn concertos. Finally, the young flutist Diren Duran performs the Andante for flute and orchestra K.315 before accompanying the harpist Elisabeth Plank for the divine concerto for flute, harp and orchestra K.299. The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for over thirty years, has teamed up with Alpha Classics for a series of recordings devoted to Mozart's concertos on all instruments. The best soloists of the younger generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor who believes that playing his music is like "looking in a mirror: you hear whether everything is in place, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing" …