The Italian Gambe di Legno has evolved into one of the leading ensembles of it's kind in recent years. Originally founded as a consort of viols, the ensemble has grown to include an ensemble of vocalists, instrumentalists and choir.

Classical Music

For this CD a chronological cross-section of Anton Bruckner's work was chosen for the recorded concert, from the very first composition of an 11 year-old, a Pange lingua, to the late Vexilla Regis. It's often hard to define Bruckner's musical roots and origins, since his first symphony already bears his unmistakable stamp, but some of these seldom performed early sacred works, still prescribing to 18th and early-19th c. Upper Austrian church tradition, can give an idea of his musical background. The chorale melodies, by Bruckner himself, display typical Alpine regional melodic attributes.

Classical Music

Classical Music

"This Compact Disc provides the listener with 13 concerts, in true live stereo, recorded during May in the famous Bialowieja National Park, in the far east of Poland. The absence of the normal noise associated with our mechanical world, and the cathedral effect on the bird songs, unknown in western Europe, such as of the Thrush Nightingales, the Barred Warbler and Collared and Red-breasted Flycatcher, all kept in rhythm by the drumming of woodpeckers, of witch there are no less than eight species in this forest. Recording made by Thierry Gaultier and Jean-Claude Roche and described in a 8 pages French and English booklet." Patrick FReMEAUX 13 Natural Soundscapes recorded in a mixed mature forest with undergrowth, grounds around the village, and in the protected primeval forest.

This double CD includes nine long natural concerts recorded at night in stereo, from different parts of the world (Provence, Dombes and Brittany in France and Elbe Island, Sardinia, the Danube Delta, Canada and Kenya). The author, a music composer, lets time take its course in his recordings, allowing the listener to really feel the beauty of nocturnal calm during more than one hour. Patrick Fremeaux

This CD presents a series of concerts recorded during the spring and summer from every corner of Provence, southern France: in garrigues, heaths, rocks and cliffs, coppices, pinewoods and forests, crops and meadows, villages, marshes, a river (the Durance), the Camargue, the Crau, Mediterranean islands, and lastly a summer-time insect concert. Using the index the listener can learn to identify the 105 species of birds, amphibians and insects that are included in these concerts. Patrick Fremeaux

This CD made by the famous audio-naturalist Bernard Fort, who leads the GMVL in Lyon, was constructed like a single storm moving as slowly as possible from one landscape to the next, and therefore presenting numerous variations on a single theme. We can hear it in mountains and valleys, over plains and forests, and landscapes that are either mineral or farmland, but always natural. Numerous sound recording techniques (intensity stereophony, phase amplitude, M/S stereo etc.) were used to record these eleven natural concerts, depending on the locale and context, taking great care to restore the spaces. The sounds have not been subjected to any manipulation other than selecting and assembling the sequences with great respect for their natural durations. Patrick FReMEAUX

“Music is like a small flame placed under the screen to help warm it’, said the American symphonic composer Aaron Copland, defining the role that music played in films. It’s an opinion shared by Claude Bolling, a major figure in European jazz and a man whose highly original scores have left an indelible mark on the collective memory: Borsalino, Lucky Luke, Le Magnifique, Les Brigades du Tigre… Fifty years after writing the music for his first short film, the great Bolling jumped at the idea of this retrospective, an entertaining project that would associate his twin statures as a pianist and film-composer within the same album.” Stephane LEROUGE Claude Bolling is the great ambassador of big-band jazz and one of the greatest film-music composers of the 20th century. He’s also the man behind the term “crossover” designating the music-genre which mixes jazz with classical music, thanks to a dozen duo records which paired Bolling with trumpeter Maurice Andre, guitarist Alexandre Lagoya, cellist Yo-Yo Ma or flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal... Claude Bolling’s “Suite for Flute and Piano” with Rampal remained in the U.S. sales-charts of “Billboard” magazine for more than ten years. Patrick FReMEAUX

(2-CD set) The Ensemble Jehan de Channey reawakens the mysterious medieval period. The troubadours' repertory of the XIIth century is balanced against that of the Goliards, discovered in the Benediktbeuren monastery and which bears it's name (Carmina Burana). The Cantigas de Santa Maria complete this depiction of medieval masterpieces. Features Cantigas de Santa Maria and Carmina Burana. Includes M'entensio * Quinte estampie reale * LI dous regard * Presidents in thronis * Ai ! lemozis * Carole * Contre le douz tans nouvel * O nacio Nephandi * Quan l'erba fresq' * Lamento di Tristano, rotta * Chanson mariale * Ihesu tu dator venie * Reis glorios * Sexte estampie reale * Douce Dame * Benedicamus Domino and much more.

Born in Menilmontant, Jo Privat was one of the greatest lumi naries of the “squeeze-box”. The work of this inspired composer and virtuoso accordionist can be situated at the confines of “musette” and gypsy music, and many of this incomparable performer’s unforgettable waltzes are today considered classics. In this set, Dany Lallemand explores the discography of the man they called “the white gypsy”, with a detailed biographical essay accompanied by rare recordings, some with their pitch corrected to restore the original timbres to the digital transfers. Claude COLOMBINI FReMEAUX

Classical Music

Classical Music

Dreams, illusions, nightmares, tender and formidable images: all this can be heard on the new, third GENUIN CD by the Japanese flutist Atsuko Koga. From the first lost melodies by her fellow countryman Akira Miyoshi and the yearning musical arcs of Carl Maria von Weber to the playful, even euphoric figurations of Bohuslav Martinu, Koga and her partners succeed in taking us into ever-new musical and spiritual landscapes.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

A cappella music is on the program on the Ensemble Nobiles second Genuin CD, in a broad curve extending from the quiet beginning of the church year on the first Sunday of Advent and the jubilation of Christmas to the prophetic Feast of the Epiphany. The ensemble’s members all originally sang in the Choir of St. Thomas's and are currently winning prize after prize. The ensemble's flawless intonation is as convincing as its musical culture and choice of pieces. Here is an alternative for the Christmas season for those seeking fresh repertoire, both old and new, from the Renaissance to the present day.

In residence at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth with the Artemis quartet, the Dali trio is a French ensemble of an exceptional level, rewarded with numerous prizes in Japan, Germany and the Unites-States in 2008. Amandine Savary, Vineta Sareika and Christian-Pierre La Marca, adding to their intense solo schedule, devote a large part of their wonderful energy to make up the trio, which is already leading them to the four corners of the world. By capturing the brilliance of their youthfulness, the subtleties of their tones, and their apparently endless quest for perfection, Fuga Libera and Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth have cooperated to make known one of tomorrow's great trios, in a repertoire comprising three summits of Maurice Ravel's production.

One can experience with admiration how one of the most important works in chamber music literature lives and breathes when it is awakened to sonorous life. Laureates of the German Music Competition play Schubert's great Octet of 1827 and these young musicians perform at the highest level.

Classical Music

17th and 18th c. musical Venice's legendary status was owed partly to the development and spread of the instrumental form known as the trio sonata. It's first great creator, the Italian Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli, was followed by such distinguished figures and fellow countrymen as Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi, both of whose cheerful, playful and profound efforts in this area are heard on this Genuine CD played by the Camerata degli amici, under the direction of the oboist Jaime González, a widely recognized chamber, soloist and orchestral musician.

Rounded, differentiated and balanced: this describes the sound of the Quatuor Sine Nomine on their second GENUIN CD, already the 13th of the Artist Consort Edition-a series on which artists dedicate themselves to matters truly dear to their hearts. The works exude a warmth that goes directly to the listener's heart.

This is the debut CD from TrioSono, a trio made up of members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Dresden Staatskapelle.+ The three piano trios on this album are from three composers from different stylistic periods- Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Friedrich Schneider (1786-1853), and August Klughardt (1847-1902). Schneider’s Klaviertrio in Es-Dur op. 38 and Klughardt’s Klaviertrio in B-Dur op. 47 are receiving their world premiere recordings on this release.