Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Like many of his contemporaries, Guillaume Dufay was greatly devoted to the Virgin Mary. His Marian works comprise liturgical pieces sung during the Mass or the Office, but also religious motets written to new poems. It was probably during his first period in the chapel of the dukes of Savoy that Dufay produced a complete cycle of polyphonic hymns for the Office of Vespers of the principal feasts. Their interpretation obeys the principle of alternatim chant, that is to say alternation between monophonic odd-numbered verses, sung in plainchant, and even-numbered polyphonic verses. Dufay employs here the techniques of composition already in use in the fourteenth century. The liturgical melody is sung in the highest voice but appears transformed according to the principles of paraphrase: the composer's inventive contribution, in this context, resides in the flexibility of the mensuration (often ternary) and the grace of his ornamentation. The other two, lower voices accompany it in a virtually homophonic style. The influence of the improvisatory practice known as 'fauxbourdon' is manifest. In it's simple form, the melody of the cantus is doubled by the tenor and the contratenor, respectively a sixth and a fourth lower. The result is a succession of highly characteristic chords, interrupted only for the cadences.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This project comes into the category of a 'reconstruction', inspired by studying Dalmatian, Gregorian, and Glagolitic sources. This repertory, sung in the local vernacular though it belonged to the Roman rite, was preserved in manuscripts written in the Glagolitic alphabet used in medieval Croatia. The archaic beauty of the text is fabulously illustrated here by images of incredible aesthetic refinement.

Classical Music

"• Recorded on four different organs, J. S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, 48 Préludes and Fugues equally divided into two books, is a veritable manifesto of the art of the keyboard and a founding work of all future keyboard literature. • Organist Frédéric Desenclos clearly reveals the architecture of these gems of imagination and compositional skill, originally composed for harpsichord. • Mr. Desenclos was a student of famed French organists Gaston Litaize and Andre Isoir. • Complete on 4 CD's; digibox."

British film composer Martin Wheeler and the high-spirited period-instrument ensemble Les Witches collaborated in the creation of the music for Arnaud des Pallières’ recent film based on the Kleist novella Michael Kohlhaas. This album represents the unexpected dialogue between two musical worlds, the fruit of an encounter with the filmmaker. This is not simply a soundtrack, however: it presents some of the music from the film, but also many pieces that accompanied its genesis but were not retained in the final edit, thus providing an extension of the film.

The French tenor Julien Behr is one of today's rising vocal stars. Voted 'Revelation artiste lyrique de l'Adami' in 2009, he has become famous for his Mozart roles. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently wrote of his performance as 'lively, with a fine timbre', while Forumopera added: 'Julien Behr's Fenton is superb: though the French tenor has hitherto been especially appreciated as a Mozartian, here he confirms his aptitude for nineteenth-century repertory.' And it is the French Romantic repertory composed between 1800 and 1900 that the tenor has chosen for his first recital album. A wide variety of works make up this programme devised by the Palazzetto Bru Zane and Alexandre Dratwicki, who writes: "Nothing is more difficult for a tenor than "finding his voice" in this imbroglio of genres and institutions... Already much admired for his charismatic vocal style and personality, the tenor Julien Behr is now the hero of a recital that revisits this repertory in all it's variety, ranging from tenderness to heroism, from joy to melancholy." The programme features Ambroise Thomas, Bizet and his famous La Jolie Fille de Perth, Cinq-Mars by Gounod, Benjamin Godard, Andre Messager and his splendid Fortuni, Delibes and Le Chevalier Jean by Victorin Joncieres among others. French versions of two extremely well-known numbers by Franz Lehar from The Merry Widow and The Land of Smiles complete this panorama magnificently supported by the Orchestre de l'Opera National de Lyon and conducted by another rising star, Pierre Bleuse.

Classical Music