Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, Karin Kei Nagano and Kent Nagano present Double and Triple Concertos by Mozart and Poulenc, together with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. This unique project highlights the musicality and congeniality of this extraordinary family of performers. On this album, the husband (Kent Nagano) conducts his wife (Mari Kodama), daughter (Karin Kei Nagano) and sister-in-law (Momo Kodama). The collective performance on this album resonates with Mozart's own practice of playing his music together with his father and sister. Despite belonging to different ages in music history, Mozart and Poulenc share a combination of playfulness and seriousness, and the latter composer manages to integrate touches of Mozartian neoclassicism into his genuinely French and twentieth-century double concerto. Sharing the stage on this recording is a dream come true for the Kodama-Nagano family. 8717306262026 PNTA5187202SACD 44281762 .00 21.99 .16 PENTATONE SUPER-AUDIO CD CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 05/24/2024 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/43/4327443-3147654.jpg 100 1 N BRAHMS / MAIJALA / GRINGOLTS QUARTET STRING QUINTETS Johannes Brahms's soul shines through in his chamber music. Following in the footsteps of Mozart and Schubert, Brahms wrote two string quintets that rank among his greatest chamber music masterpieces. He took up this genre rather late in life, but in it he was able to express both the joy and the nostalgia he carried with him into his maturity. The Quintet in F major, Op. 88, held a special place in the composer's heart, and he considered it to be his finest work. A bucolic spirit and a gentle joie de vivre pervade the work, sometimes referred to as the 'spring quintet'. A majestic, pastoral first movement testifies to this cheerfulness, followed by a melancholy movement before the spirited finale. The Quintet in G major, Op. 111, also radiates vigour, expressing the composer's strength, nostalgia and exuberance. With echoes of Viennese folk music, the piece has been referred to as the 'Prater quintet', a reference to the famous Viennese park. These two deep and melancholic works are played by the Gringolts Quartet, whose previous recordings for BIS, particularly those devoted to Arnold Schoenberg's quartets, have won high praise, and who are joined by sought-after Finnish violist Lilli Maijala. 7318599927275 BIS2727SACD 44319854 .00 21.99 .14 BIS SUPER-AUDIO CD CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 06/21/2024 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/50/4335050-3177953.jpg 31 1 N CREMA / CERASANI LUTE MUSIC Giovanni Maria da Crema remains to this day a mysterious figure in the history of the lute, with very little information known about his life. However his oeuvre is crucial to understanding the lute's place in 16thcentury Italy. His Libro primo, published in Venice by Antonio Gardane in 1546, is presented as an edition newly reprinted and corrected by the author himself", indicating the existence of a rival prior edition, namely that published by Girolamo Scotto, with the same contents and minimal differences. Two years later, also in Venice, Scotto would publish Francesco da Milano's Libro settimo which also includes keyboard pieces by Giulio Segni da Modena intabulated for the lute by Giovanni Maria da Crema. Some of these intabulations had already appeared in Giovanni Maria da Crema's Libro primo without mention of Giulio Segni's authorship of the keyboard original. This recording features the Libro primo, with the addition of three pieces from the Da Milano Libro settimo. The former aims to present a broad overview of lute music in the mid-16th century. Divided into implicit sections, it opens with 15 ricercars, among the most interesting of the period, in a continuous alternation of styles and characters. Some of them clearly show the influence of Francesco da Milano, with at least two of them (the Nono and Undecimo) attributed directly to Da Milano in other sources. The chansons section is quite extensive and includes intabulations of songs by composers well-known and anonymous. A personal selection was made for this recording. Next is a series of motets. The beautiful four-voice Quae est ista by Nicolas Gombert for example is masterfully intabulated by Da Crema. The madrigal genre is represented by five pieces; two each by Philippe Verdelot and Jacob Arcadelt are included on the recording. The Libro primo closes with a series of dances, primarily of two types passamezzo and saltarello - which in some cases form a pair based on the same musical material. This recording represents a highly personal selection of Giovanni Maria da Crema's lute works dictated solely by the performer's taste and artistic needs. Like Da Crema's contemporaries, Domenico Cerasani believes this music to be of extraordinary value, able to engage today's listeners and immerse them in the fascinating and multifaceted world of the 16th-century lute.