On his debut solo album, German tenor Richard Resch presents a selection of early Baroque cantatas and other vocal music works from northern Germany. Together with Ensemble La Silla, he explores this beautiful but not so well-known repertoire, including two world premiere recordings of rediscovered works by Johann Friedrich Meister and Gottfried Philipp Flor. Born in Regensburg, the tenor Richard Resch received his first musical training at the humanistic music school of the Regensburger Domspatzen, where he came into contact with a broad musical repertoire from the very beginning and was able to work with many well-known artists. After graduating from high school, he first studied elementary music pedagogy, piano and singing pedagogy at the Nuremberg-Augsburg University of Music, among others with Agnes Habereder. The pedagogical studies were followed by singing studies with Prof. Hans-Joachim Beyer as well as with Edda Sevenich and Prof. Dominik Wortig at the Leopold Mozart Center of the University of Augsburg. As part of his lively activity as a concert and opera singer, engagements have taken him to various houses such as the Augsburg and Braunschweig State Theaters, the Bregenz State Theater, the Opéra National de Bordeaux and the Bavarian State Opera, as well as to festivals such as the Bach Festival in Leipzig, the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, the Festival Bach Montréal, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the ION Musica Sacra in Nuremberg, the Munich Opera Festival, the Musikfest Stuttgart, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Salzburg Mozart Week.

On his first solo clavichord album, Alexander Gergelyfi creates an exceptionally colorful and at the same time sensual portrait of his home country Austria. Exquisite music from the 17th and 18th centuries is presented on what is probably the oldest surviving Austrian clavichord. The elegant "Admont" clavichord serves Alexander Gergelyfi as a gateway to hidden sounds and as a companion between dances. Simple yet affecting, keen, and fine. Born in Linz on the Danube in Austria, Alexander Gergelyfi studied harpsichord, historical keyboard instruments and early music performance practice with August Humer, Brett Leighton (Linz/Austria), Eva Maria Pollerus, Michael Hell (Graz/Austria), Aline Zylberajch (Strasbourg/France), Volkhardt Preuss and Menno van Delft (Hamburg/Germany).As a soloist and chamber and orchestra musician, he appears regularly with il Gusto Barocco, Hofkapelle Graz, L‘Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, Barucco, recreationBAROCK, the Viennese early music collective opia and Ensemble Verbotene Frucht. Inspirational experiences connect him with Jörg Halubek, Carin van Heerden, Michi Gaigg, Heinz Ferlesch, Michael Hell and Jordi Savall, among others. Alexander maintains a close musical friendship with personalities such as Gerhart Darmstadt, Amy Power, Joachim Kremer, Julia Willeitner and Carsten Wollin.

German viola player Nadine Henrichs presents an exquisite collection of original works and arrangements for viola from the 18th century. Most pieces are soloistic, while two sonatas by Flackton and Bach are for small chamber ensemble. With this album, Nadien Henrichs has fulfilled a long-standing dream of hers: starting an attempt to elevate the baroque viola from its ridiculed niche existence. Since her first studies, Nadine has always played the viola with great passion in various chamber music projects. She plays as guest and member in several ensembles. Nadine plays her own baroque viola, built in Vienna in 1775 by Johann Georg Thir.

One of the most prominent women in medieval Europe, Hildegard of Bingen's political, spiritual, and artistic legacy has remained unique to this day. For good reason, she is still known to a wide public almost a thousand years after her death. The interest in Hildegard gained momentum after Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church. It is therefore to be welcomed that a young generation of musicians is exploring her works. Thanks to the Sequentia ensemble, Hildegard’s entrancing music has made it into the pop music charts since 1980. Initially, the aim was mainly to unveil the treasure of Hildegard’s compositions. As time has passed, not only has a great deal of knowledge about early music reading and performance practice been acquired, but also young musicians nowadays feel much more relaxed about developing their own views and interpretations of masterpieces, thus making valuable contributions from both a philological and musical standpoint.

This is precisely what we should expect when Arianna Savall, Petter Udland Johansen and their Hirundo Maris ensemble delve into Hildegard’s music. Vox Cosmica, the name of the CD, says it all, for Hildegard was convinced that the cosmos was a single sonorous whole held together by the harmony and love of a creator. His holy principles are transformed by Hildegard into sounds. Caritas and Sapientia are not sung,: instead, they raise their voices themselves. What better expression of those principles than Arianna Savall’s clear, warm, sensual and unpretentious soprano voice?

Her counterpart is is Petter Udland Johansen’s characterful tenor. Vox Cosmica goes beyond Hildegard of Bingen’s feminine spirituality to create a male antipode in Peter Abelard’s Laments of David. In both his tragic love for his pupil Héloise and his theology based on reason, Abelard is an antipode, if not the antipode of Hildegard: not only in his life and teachings, but also in the few intensely personal compositions that have survived. Whereas Hildegard refers to the great whole and the ideal, Abelard focuses on the specific and the individual. Hildegard knows no pain, while Abelard sings of it alone – and Petter Udland Johansen certainly brings that pain to its most heartfelt expression.

The musicians – Hirundo Maris, David Mayoral, Anke and Andreas Spindler – move effortlessly and knowledgeably through the complex manuscripts of both the medieval abbess and the love-stricken theologian. Yet they do not forget their own origins or our musical present. They join together Hildegard’s main chants to create touching units, contrasting them with Abelard, and threading it all together with musical meditations by Petter Udland Johansen. These meditations are intensely moving, shifting the timeframes almost imperceptibly from medieval music to the present, neither detaching from Hildegard’s material in a modernistic manner nor ingratiating in a cosy, stereotypical way to produce an esoteric feel-good atmosphere. Thus, rather than providing a contrast to medieval sounds, present-day music is allowed to flow logically from the latter. The aim is nothing less than a new unity of past and present, which in fact is timelessness. In this way, Hildegard’s and Abelard’s messages easily cross space and time, being felt in a very direct, emotionally authentic way. As to us, we can ask ourselves what remains foreign and what touches us.

Thomas Höft

The famous Swiss-American lute player Peter Croton plays on his Carpe Diem debut a collection of fantasias by the two Italian lute-composers Francesco Spinacino & Francesco da Milano. The 15th century saw the lute emerge as a solo instrument, and the terms ricer car and fantasia were used for works created without preexisting models. The ability to improvise was apparently as widespread then as it is in jazz today. Peter Croton, also known for his contemporary and jazz-related musical projects, explores this beautiful musical world with the heart of a true improviser, free of limiting preconceptions and sparkling with creativity.

The works featured on this new album are by German composer Esaias Reusner (1636-1679). Reusner was a child prodigy who traveled and performed at courts across Europe with his lutenist father, Esaias senior. Reusner released two collections of lute suites, “Deliciae testudinis,” and “Neue Lauten-fruchte.” These pieces are taken from the latter. These pieces are performed by world-renowned Japanese lutenist, Toyohiko Satoh. Satoh gave his first public recital in Tokyo in 1965, and moved to Europe shortly after. He studied lute with Eugen Muller-Dombois at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland.

Swedish musician Corina Marti is a celebrated harpsichordist from Sweden who specializes in Medieval and early Renaissance music. She has performed across Europe and the Middle East, and frequently performs with La Morra, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of Late Medieval and Early Renaissance European music. Enea Sorini is an Italian singer who is a charter member of Urbino Bella Gerit ensemble, a group dedicated to the study and authentic performance of Renaissance repertoire. For this recording, Corina Marti and Enea Sorini offer a rare collection of pieces from early 16th century Italy.

D�nde son estas serranas is the new concept album of composer and lutenist Lee Santana, together with German jazz guitarist and composer Andreas Wahl. The program is based on an ancient Spanish love song. It reappears throughout the album in different arrangements and compositions, some very close to the original, some very far away from it. The music ranges from Spanish Renaissance music to contemporary Jazz and Rock elements, creating a mesmerizing fusion of music from very different times and styles, melting centuries of western music culture into something absolutely new, unique and timeless. Lee Santana is an American lutenist and composer who resides and works in Bremen, Germany. He has composed a variety of works for early instruments, and regularly performs with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the gambist Hille Perl, and in the group Los Otros, among others. Andreas Wahl was born in Stuttgart and studied jazz guitar at the University of Arts ArtEZ in the Netherlands. He performs concerts all over the world, and has recorded albums both as a solo artist and with various bands and projects like the Zodiak Trio, Frele Wahl, and The Bliss.

Classical Music

The new album by Arianna Savall, Petter Udland Johansen and their ensemble Hirundo Maris, following last years’ Hildegard of Bingen - recording, is a musical journey of Amor, the love, through Europe and beyond, and through different ages and cultures. Assembled on this album are traditional songs, songs from Renaissance sources as well as new compositions by Arianna Savall and, finally, the famous “Gracias a la vida” by Chilenian singer and political activist Violeta Parra.

The six musicians of Hirundo Maris combine all these diverse musical sources of their music into a time- and weightless dance through time and space. In the end, it is not clear anymore where the borders and differences between them are, and it is not even important anymore: Love as the universal uniting force is being applied here in a most practical way, and made comprehensible and very real to the attentive listener.

Hirundo Maris:

Arianna Savall – soprano, baroque triple harp
Petter Udland Johansen – tenor, hardingfele, cittern
Michal Nagy – guitar, voice
Sveinung Lilleheier – guitar, dobro, voice
Miquel Angel Cordero – colascione, double base, voice
David Mayoral – percussion, voice

This new album of haprsichordist Catalina Vicens is a unique, multifaceted musical and poetic project. First, it features music from Naples, Italy from around 1525, the year when the instrument that she plays was actually built in Naples. Secondly, Ms. Vicens conceived an imaginary tale of the life and story of that very instrument, partly based on historical facts, partly on poetic inspiration emerging from her encounter with this priceless treasure of a historical harpsichord. The album comes with a free audiobook download of that same story, narrated by Ms. Vicens herself and accompanied with original music from the disc.

The New Solo CD of Toyohiko Satoh, the 72 Year-Old Japanese Lutenist Who Is Considered My Many As One of the Most Influential Lute Players of the Last Century, Presents a Well-Known Repertoire of Baroque Lute Music. Mr. Satoh Was the First Lutenist to Record Bach's Lute Music on LP in the 70S (Phillips). Now He Returns to This Music 40 Years Later, Delivering a Completely Different Rendering of These Iconic Pieces. His Playing Has Been Influenced Much By the Studies of Traditional Japanese Arts Such As Tea Ceremony, No-Theater and Zen Meditation. So Here We Are Presented a Recording That Draws from the Deep Silence Within, from the Awareness of Everything in the Universe Being Connected, and from the Understanding of Bach's Music As a Universal, Almost Superhuman Symbol of Completeness.

This release features three suites for Violoncello by J. S. Bach, played by Gyöngy Erödi on a baroque violoncello in the incredible acoustics of a small chapel in the Austrian mountains. This is a very special and personal rendering of these iconic masterworks. Hungarian-born Gyöngy Erödi appears regularly as cellist/ principal/ continuo player throughout Europe, the British Isles and the United States. A versatile musician, Gyongy was trained in choir conducting, music theory and piano at the acclaimed Ferenc Liszt Conservatory in Budapest and moved to Germany to study modern violoncello with Annemarie Spengler, baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden and harpsichord with Glen Wilson at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg. In 2005, she moved to the USA, to attain a double master degree in cello performance and musicology. She also plays the viol and her thesis introduces the sixteenth-century bass violin, the direct ancestor of the violoncello.

The present release is the second solo album of the young German guitarist Elise Neumann. She chose to combine two seemingly different composers on this album: J.S. Bach and Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco. While at first one might have difficulty drawing a connection between the two composers, they are alike in their compositional forms. Like J.S. Bach, Castelnuevo-Tedesco wrote music in the form of the suite, but his musical ideas are completely different. Elise Neumann plays with her acclaimed warm and soulful tone on a rare instrument built by the luthier Daniel Friederich in 1969. On this recording, instrument and player form a perfect team, establishing a most natural, effortless and deeply musical interpretation of these well-known works.

French lutenist Florent Marie presents a collection of solo lute works by Giovanni Antonio Terzi (fl. 1580-1600). Terzi was a composer addressing modernity, as well as being a true European. The purpose of this recording is to try and supplement previous ones by emphasizing Terzi’s solo pieces, whose variety and quality have hardly been explored up to now. Music has always played an important part in Florent’s family: Singing polyphonic music and having a lute-making father—who built most of his instruments—probably explains why he chose to devote himself to the lute family. At the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon he obtained his lute qualifications in Eugène Ferré’s class (2006) and discovered with Jean-Yves Haymoz the techniques of polyphonic improvisation, thus becoming one of the first lutenists to improvise ricercari in public.