If Joseph Haydn played a major role in the development of the symphony and string quartet, he was also and no less the virtual creator of the classical keyboard sonata. In wealth of musical invention and diversity of forms his sonatas surpass those of even Mozart and Beethoven. Although mostly less demanding technically, they are by no means easier to interpret. Their relatively modest demands in the way of virtuosity are more than made up for by the greater creative contribution they require from the player. Especially in the sonatas of his early and middle periods Haydn allowed considerable leeway to the interpreter in matters ranging from choice of ornaments to virtual invitations to interpolate free cadenzas. An intriguing challenge, but many pianists nowadays do not know how to cope with it. Schooled in later traditions, they cling to the printed text, never daring to make the contribution the composer took it for granted he could expect from the performer. Still, if Haydn placed considerable reliance on the player’s personal creative talent this never meant a blanket permission to alter the musical sense by changes foreign to the style of the time. In this release, legendary Viennese pianist Paul Badura-Skoda has recorded five piano masterworks by Joseph Haydn, on the occasion of the bicentenary of his death. His fortepiano from his own collection, which has been used for this recording and was built around 1790, is the most appropriate instrument available today for interpreting Haydn’s music.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Following their album largely devoted to sacred polyphonic works composed for the basilica of Santa Barbara during the period in which Claudio Monteverdi worked for the Gonzagas in Mantua, Odhecaton now presents sacred compositions from the composer's later years, written for St Mark's basilica where he became maestro di cappella in 1613. This new recording presents both sides of Monteverdi's sacred style: the stile antico or strict contrapuntal style, exemplified in the Mass for four voices published posthumously in 1650; and the stile moderno, that is, concertato and solo vocal writing. The concertato style, which combines and intertwines voices and instruments in dialogue, characterizes the monumental Gloria a 7, which was conceived for a cappella rich in virtuoso singers and instrumentalists. But in this city of theaters, in the heyday of the canto a voce sola, Monteverdi transformed the famous Lamento d'Arianna (from his lost opera Arianna) into a sacred piece. The Litanies to the Virgin Mary, published in three collections between 1620 and 1650, represent the expression of a gentle Marian style, dominated by a cappella choral invocations alternating with brief solo passages.

One of the most talented singers of the new generation brings to light four gems for soprano and orchestra belonging to the great eighteenth -century tradition of Neapolitan sacred music. The three composers are representative of as many generations of an industrious dynasty: Francesco Feo (1691-1761) was the uncle of Gennaro Manna (1715-79), who in turn was the uncle of Gaetano (1751-1804). Comparison between their scores allows us to observe the extraordinary development from the austerity of the late Baroque to the elegance of the galant style. The Lamentations by the two Mannas were part of the liturgy of Holy Thursday (Officium tenebrarum), whereas Feo’s La sinderesi, a sorrowful meditation on sin and contrition, belongs to the form of the spiritual cantata and points to a private devotional environment. The short and bright Gloria by Gennaro Manna crowns the programme, symbolising the final achievement of a dimension of redemption and eternal salvation. All the pieces are characterised by the typically Neapolitan taste for purity of voice, with restrained virtuosity and radiant expressivity. This is the third instalment of the new series devoted to Neapolitan music, in collaboration with the Neapolitan Centro di Musica Antica - Fondazione Pietà de’ Turchini.

Classical Music

Could you ever imagine that one of the most popular saints in the Christian calendar of the Middle Ages was - Buddha? After ten years of research in a multitude of libraries worldwide, Katarina Livljanic and the ensemble Dialogos, faithfull to their exploratory and fearless spirit, bring yet another surprise from the less known medieval lands, after it's award-winning albums such as Dalmatica: Chants of the Adriatic (A395), Lombards & Barbares (A319), La vision de Tondal (A329), Judith: A Biblical Story from Renaissance Croatia (Alpha 702). It is the incredible story of saints Barlaam and Josaphat, a christianized version of Buddha's life, which crossed over at least four religions and was transmitted through almost all the medieval languages. Powerful songs - incarnated by voice and instruments, sing the legend about the king's son, prince Josaphat, who leaves the noisy world of opulence to search for inner peace - songs which follow the path of his story from one medieval language to another, from Greek, Latin to Old Croatian, Italian, Church Slavonic... This project is a unique new experience: a multimedia e-book, in French and English, is included with this release. It tells the story of Barlaam & Josaphat and leads the listener/reader through one of the most intriguing labyrinths of medieval world. Through a rich and original video, audio and iconographic material, it opens the doors into the artistic creative process which transformed a medieval legend into a music performance.

After the success of ''L'ultimo romano'', his album of music for archlute from the 1718 collection of the Roman composer Giovanni Zamboni, Simone Vallerotonda presents something totally new with his Baroque ''power trio'' I Bassifondi: ''Alfabeto falso''. Their debut album is devoted to Italian and Spanish music for guitar and theorbo from the first half of the seventeenth century. A little-known repertory, characterized by rhythmic oddities and harmonic extravagances that challenge those of contemporary jazz. Ordinary ''alfabeto'' was the system used by guitarists of the period to mark chords: each letter corresponded to a single chord. But, in the ''false alphabet'', those letters which were marked with a slash indicated chords containing dissonances, often very bold. The trio, comprising guitar/theorbo, percussion instruments and colachon, reconstructs an ensemble typical of the seventeenth century. Breathtaking rhythms, ''dirty'' chords, improvisations and variations: these are the colors they seek to convey in their sound. The beauty and the challenge of this disc lie precisely in providing an interpretation that respects everything notated in the score, and in the choice of arrangements and timbres. This music sounds modern and perhaps slightly provocative to us, but all of it was written around 1640.

Brother and sister Marc Mauillon and Angelique Mauillon present this new release, Li Due Orfei. The music featured on this album is primarily by composers Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri. The two virtuosic singers and composers lived in Florence in the early 1600s, and were rivals in every sense, both striving to rediscover the Greek tragedy. The works on this album were meant to be sung with a simple accompaniment of a plucked instrument, such as lute. The composers would sometimes accompany themselves, but would frequently perform with family members, making the brother-sister team performing here a natural fit.

Following a critically acclaimed Vivaldi album, recorder player Lorenzo Cavasanti and his partners - grouped under the name Tripla Concordia - turn their attention to Georg Philipp Telemann, with an original programme that goes beyond the usual canon of his recorder sonatas. Among Telemann's hundreds of sonatas, his last publication of solos for melody instrument and basso continuo, the XII Solos a violin ou traversiere, contains music of great expressive depth. These twelve works not only sum up the composer's approach to the solo sonata over several decades, but also reveal his continuing exploration of the genre's possibilities. Yet they have been unfairly overshadowed by several of his earlier sonata collections. This recording by Lorenzo Cavasanti and the members of Tripla Concordia offers a new perspective on the XII Solos by performing four of them with recorder in place of violin or flute. Such flexibility of instrumentation was characteristic of Telemann, who often sanctioned alternative scorings in his publications. Paired with these works is a sonata preserved in a Brussels manuscript and one from the well-known Essercizii musici. The music's significance is explored in booklet notes by Telemann scholar Steven Zohn, author of Music for a Mixed Taste: Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann's instrumental works.

It is an important moment in the life of a singer when she is able to confront the standard repertory. After years spent studying theatre and music in Shakespeare's England under the guidance of musicologist Philip Brett, Jill Feldman recorded two programmes of Henry Purcell's music in 1992, which is reissued here. Many of the ‘Ayres and Songs’ from Orpheus Britannicus are connected to the English theatrical tradition. In the earliest piece on this album, ‘From Silent Shades’, and the latest, ‘From Rosy Bow'rs’, we hear one theatrical tradition – placing the voice of truth in the mouth of a madman. In the same way, we hear the wisdom of Touchstone in As You Like It, of Feste in Twelfth Night, and of King Lear's Fool. This programme, superbly accompanied by lutenist Nigel North, searches for that wisdom throughout. In the Harmonia Sacra recording, Purcell’s sacred hymns are interspersed with his complete organ works played by Davitt Moroney, with whom Jill Feldman had collaborated ever since their meeting in 1975 as part of Philip Brett’s ensemble at Berkeley in California. The organ is an exquisite instrument built by Purcell’s contemporary, Thomas Dallam (1677), which resides in the small village of Guimiliau in Brittany.

The central role of Naples in the history of vocal music has so far overshadowed a rich tradition of instrumental music; only in recent years has musicological research begun bringing it to light once more, demonstrating that Naples also played a crucial role in the field of instrumental music, no less relevant than other centres more often associated with this repertory, such as Rome and Venice. This release presents a voyage of discovery into a musical heritage that is even less known, but of the highest value. The new project conceived by Enrico Gatti focuses on the specific scoring for three or four violins (without viola) and continuo which was so typical of the Neapolitan School. Precious gems are unearthed here (including the only solo violin sonata by Giovanni Carlo Cailò, in its first modern recording), and this programme makes many different exponents of Neapolitan instrumental composition accessible to a wider public, from the generation of Pietro Marchitelli (slightly older than Corelli) and Giovanni Carlo Cailò to Francesco Paolo Supriani, Angelo Ragazzi, Nicola Fiorenza and Leonardo Leo – contemporaries of Bach, Tartini and Locatelli, yet who are revealed as possessing a completely different style, at a time when Naples was one of the great European capitals. The musical forms range from church sonatas in the strict style to concertos of more modern conception, thus providing an enjoyable and varied listening experience.

Classical Music

Two details in the career of Johann Paul von Westhof (1656-1705) draw our attention to him and his solo violin suites. First, he was one of the leading violin virtuosos of his time who, in his later years, served at the Weimar court of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar along with the teenaged Johann Sebastian Bach. Second, he is the composer of the earliest collection of suites for the unaccompanied violin, printed at 1696. Westhoff was therefore not only a violinist of wide renown and the first to conceive a cycle of unaccompanied violin suites, but also a likely inspiration for Bach’s own violin playing and his eventual sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin. Westhoff’s roots lay in the seventeenth-century German school of virtuoso violinists. Early in the century, violin playing was dominated by Italians and was disseminated northward by virtuosos such as Carlo Farina and Giovanni Battista Buonamente, who made their careers north of the Alps or visited there. In response to this impetus, German violinists imitated and then surpassed the Italians, raising violin technique to unprecedented heights by incorporating ever higher left-hand positions, more complex bow strokes, and a predilection for chord playing. These six Partitas are performed by Gunar Letzbor, who has already explored Partitas by Johann Joseph Vilsmayr in his exploration of violin music pre-Bach.

• The critically-acclaimed ensemble Mala Punica came into the limelight in the mid-1990's with a trilogy of illustrious, multi-award-winning discs on Arcana, which revolutionized the world of medieval music and performance practice: Ars subtilis Ytaliaca (A21), D’Amor ragionando (A22) and En attendant (A23). For the first time, all these milestone recordings are united in one set.