This delightful new release from Stradivarius features keyboard works from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most virtuosic composers for keyboard that has ever lived. In many of Mozart’s first editions, the titles bear the French indication Sonatas pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piani. That is, the works were to be performed on either the harpsichord or the fortepiano. For this release, the rarer option has been chosen: the harpsichord. Basilio Timpanaro and Rossella Policardo make up The Harpsichord Duo. The duo has been engaged in the Italian concert scene for many years, earning public and critical notoriety.

John Tavener describes his music as resembling ‘ikons in sound’ – a window on to the Divine world. On the album, the London-based ensemble known as The Choir sing a program devoted to Tavener's hauntingly beautiful a cappella choral music..

"The power of the performances is overwhelming and the credit goes to James Whitbourn and his vocal ensemble The Choir" - The Organ.

What name comes to mind when you are asked about the essence of the Brazilian music? I am sure that some of you will say Villa-Lobos; others will think of Jobim. In Brazil, classical and the popular music are not far apart. They are more like two cities on the same plain and the present disc travels between these two cities while visiting a few towns on the way. What will carry us along this road? Obviously, the wings of song, as Portuguese is the singing language par excellence. The disc contains a selection of Brazilian songs written over the span of fifty years.

Christiane Roncaglio has a beautiful voice. With its dark smoky notes it sounds more mezzo than soprano. There are sharp corners too and the singing is intense. For these reasons, the album is probably not for repetitive and relaxed “evening listening”, but energises and stimulates. The diction is very clear. The accompaniment is divided between guitar and piano, a solution that provides lightness and diversity.

Jobim’s “Big Four” (Corcovado, Desafinado, One Note Samba and The Girl from Ipanema) are all here and need no introduction. His other songs are also memorably melodic and infectiously swinging in his unique affable way. Roncaglio’s performance of Jobim’s standards is a long way from the classical Astrud Gilberto’s shyness and mystery; her singing is more open and glossy. I like how she colours the long notes so that they are never plain or even, which is important for tracks like Eu sei que eu vou te amar.

Villa-Lobos’ songs from Floresta de Amazonas are all very beautiful and melodic. Roncaglio’s performance of them is alluringly mystical, like the singing of sea sirens. Songs from Santoro’s cycle Canções de Amor are sensual and expressive, and all distinctly Puccinian, especially the gloomy and intense Amor que partiu.

There are tender lullabies like Henrique’s Tamba-Tajá and sad cinematic ballads like Miranda’s Retrato. Some numbers, like Minha Terra, resemble operetta. Others, like Uirapuru, are more cabaret-style. Several tracks glorify Brazil and everything Brazilian. Roncaglio shows good control, plays with her voice and enjoys the process, yet never turns it into vulgar “cabaret singing”.

The two accompanying musicians play with sense and sensibility. Sometimes extra-musical squeaks are noticeable when the guitarist moves his fingers along the strings.

Overall, this is a very fine album with solid performances of beautiful songs. It is full of the colourful, carefree spirit of Brazil.

– M usicWeb International (Oleg Ledeniov)

Classical Music

"Grigolo made a triumphant Covent Garden debut...He balances Italianate ardour with style and intelligence...and his good looks and energetic acting make him an appealing stage figure." - The Daily Telegraph

"He's got everything the role demands - a voice that flows, terrific looks, an instinctive sense of theatre. He's entirely credible as a 20 year old uncontrollably in love and everything he does seems natural, from his impetuous first appearance in the Aimens courtyard, to his chilling shriek of despair at Manon's death." - The Guardian

"In his Covent Garden debut, rising star Vittorio Grigolo wins the audience's hearts with his good looks, ardent singing and an eager demeanour that takes on the full tragic dimension of Chevalier des Grieux's predicament." - The Stage

"More than matching Netrebko for passion and control was the Des Grieux of the young Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo, making his debut at Covent Garden. The thunderous ovation he received at curtain call suggested that the audience sensed the birth of a star." - The Evening Standard

"Vittorio Grigolo's dashing and thrillingly sung Chevalier des Grieux, his seductive middle voice covered to beautiful effect in the many subito shadings in mezza voce." - The Independent

"The voice was ablaze, mobile in dynamics like Des Grieux's heart, able to soar and sob alike without the slightest strain. The house loved him." - The Times

Here/After: Songs of Lost Voices gives voice to those no longer with us, including Camille Claudel, Francis Poulenc, Wanda Landowska, Pierre Bernac and Paul Eluard. It also pays tribute to the lives lost on September 11, 2001. Here/After is a double play on the spiritual hereafter that their voices are still here even though their bodies are gone.

COLLECTION OF AMERICAN SONGS / VARIOUS

Estonia provides both starting point and goal for this disc of sacred music for male choir, with a traditional hymn followed by works by composers such as Kreek, Eespere and Lemba, and the closing De profundis by Arvo Pärt. But in between, Orphei Drängar and their conductor Cecilia Rydinger Alin make a grand tour of Europe, taking in music by composers from the Nordic countries, France, Italy, Central Europe and the UK. Biblical Psalms have provided many of these with their texts, such as Milhaud (in French), Langlais (in English), Kreek (in Estonian) and Pärt (in Latin). Others - Lemba, Söderman, Sandström - have set portions of the text of the Catholic mass. Grieg and Biebl were both inspired by prayers in Latin, while Rossini chose to set one in Italian. For Nattlig madonna ('Nocturnal Madonna') the Finnish composer Nils-Eric Fougtstedt selected a poem depicting the Virgin Mary with her newborn child by his compatriot Edith Södergran, while Bob Chilcott has chosen one by the Guyanese-British poet John Aagard, whose version of John Newton's Amazing Grace gives the background to the conversion of this 18th-century slave-trader turned abolitionist. Throughout a programme ranging from Rossini's Preghiera from c. 1860 to Sven-David Sandström's Sanctus, composed for the choir in 2010, Orphei Drängar and Rydinger Alin once again demonstrate the versatility and exalted standards that habitually causes the choir to be described as the finest male-voice choir in the world.

Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was one of America's truly original 20th Century composers, his works crossing between serious classical and a somewhat more popular vein. An ASCAP Board of Directors member for over thirty years, he also served as ASCAP President from 1942-48. Of the 24 songs featured on this Centaur release, sung by soprano Elizabeth Tryon accompanied by George Small, virtually all, if not all are receiving their first recordings. Ms. Tryon, often referred to as "two voices in one artist" sings both classical music and Top 40 pop, making her a perfect candidate for this literature.

THÉRACHE Missa Comment peult avoir joye. Missa Fortuna desperate : excerpts . Missa O vos omnes : excerpts . Gaude Maria. Verbum bonum. JOSQUIN DES PREZ Comment peult avoir joye. ISAAC Missa Comment peult avoir joye —excerpt • Peter Urquhart, dir; Capella Alamire; Alamire Consort • CENTAUR 3282 (50:39 Text and Translation)


Pierrequin de Thérache (c.1470–1528) spent his career at the court of Lorraine in Nancy from 1492, serving from 1500 to 1527 as master of the choirboys. One motet heard here, Verbum bonum , is his most well-known work, not least because Mouton used it as the cantus firmus of a Mass. Peter Urquhart’s plan to present more of his work embraces an entire Mass, excerpts from two more Masses, a second motet, and related works by two contemporaries. The Josquin chanson provides the cantus firmus for the main work on this program, and Isaac’s Mass (of which we hear only a single Agnus Dei) is also based on Josquin’s chanson. All that might have been used to fill up the disc would be a sample of Mouton’s Mass, mentioned in the notes.


I knew just where to find the only previous recording of Thérache’s music in my collection, for the estimable Dominique Vellard recorded a disc for the K617 label devoted to the chapel of the dukes of Lorraine ( Fanfare 19:6). That disc included the entire Missa O vos omnes (on a motet by Loyset Compere) and the same motet Verbum bonum. Pascal Desaux, who wrote the notes and provided the research for that disc, estimated Thérache’s birth a little earlier, at c.1460. The connection between the court of Lorraine and the cathedral of Cambrai, where the unique manuscript of the Mass is found (a source as well for works of Josquin des Prez), is the brothers Loyset and Pierrequin de Thérache. They spent their early days in Cambrai, but Loyset eventually became music copyist at the cathedral, while his brother went off to Lorraine. Little wonder that the latter’s Mass found its way into the Cambrai manuscript. That Mass is heard here with the shorter pieces inserted to break up the sequence of movements (without separating the Kyrie-Gloria pair), exemplifying the familiar style of the Josquin era. The performance is of high quality, sung by a homogeneous vocal ensemble of fine tonal sheen and precise execution.


This disc deserves notice for the obscurity of the composer and the excellence of the performances, which should not have been neglected when it was issued over a year ago. The capella consists of nine singers, the consort five players. The Josquin and Isaac fillers, the only tracks that combine vocal and instrumental, are intelligent supplements to the main collection. Get acquainted with one more unfamiliar composer.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

This 2009 recording includes mezzosoprano Marilyn Schmiege, and violinist Ingrid Seifert, alongside the Cappella Coloniensis orchestra. (Phoenix)

After 25 years of an astonishing international career, highly praised Soprano Patricia Petibon, in collaboration with Andrea Marcon and his fantastic La Cetra Barockorchester, unveils on March 18th her new album 'La Travers�e', an oniric musical journey through Time, feelings and musical trends, from Mozart to Verdi, Gluck to Offenbach. A sublime Classical program, both energizing and deeply moving.

A festive concert of great voices, this Volkslied-Edition offers on 5 CDs the most famous and most beloved German folksongs, performed by well known singers like Hermann Prey, Peter Schreier, and famous choirs, especially boys choirs, such as the Dresden Kreuzchor, Thomanerchor Leipzig and the Regensburger Domspatzen. A well done edition for all friends of choir music offered for a verys special price!

Following successful French and Spanish harpsichord albums, Sophie Yates is at it again with English harpsichord music. "With this anthology, I hope to give an overview of English keyboard music during the course of the eighteenth century. Two significant figures cast their long shadows over this period of music in England: the first of which is Henry Purcell, whose legacy dominated the beginning of the century: the second of which is George Frederic Handel, who embodies the idea of eighteenth-century English music..."

The great bass-baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has been involved with the music of Bach throughout his career. Even as a student, he studied the cantatas and in his first Post-War concert in 1947, he was a soloist in the "St. Matthew Passion." As the singer's career progressed, performances of the music of Bach and his contemporaries became increasingly rare. However, in the 1950s, while at the beginning of his career, Fischer-Dieskau produced a series of radio recordings featuring not only the music of Bach but other Baroque composers such as Schutz, Tunder and St. Elzel.

Classical Music

Around the time The King's Singers was starting up, one of the most productive periods of songwriting in history was coming to a close in America, starting with composers such as Gershwin, Kern, Berlin and Porter in the early 1920s, and continuing through to the early 1960s. In this new 2-CD studio recording - featuring brand new a cappella arrangements by jazz composer and arranger Alexander L'Estrange, and swing-orchestra performances with the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra - The King's Singers bring their own unique performance style to this wonderful music.

Classical Music

Anonima Frottolisti Ensemble, a group specializing in Early and medieval music, confronts a little performed yet interesting repertoire: the “contrafacta”, compositions in which the lyrics and the melodies are a blend of the sacred and profane. Starting from the 12th c., these two seemingly opposed worlds diverged in the custom of secular text usage on sacred melodies. Later, the trend is the opposite: popular melodies in vogue at the time are filled with liturgical and spiritual texts, thus becoming an effective means of leading people to faith and knowledge of the scriptures.

All selections are performed twice on this box set. All selections on CD 1 are sung in their original languages. The same works are repeated on CD 2, where the German language songs are sung in English. The Hebrew and English language works on CD 2 are again sung in their original form.

The newest release from Altissimo! Celebrates the music of Percy Grainger, both familiar and unknown, recorded live in 2011 at a concert given in observation of the 50th anniversary of composer death, performed by the "President's Own" US Marine Band under Colonel Michael J. Colburn in collaboration with the Choral Arts Society of Washington. The title The Music Lover's Grainger was borrowed from one of Grainger's many unfinished publishing projects, reflecting the world premiere recordings featured on the program. These include a version of "The Lost Lady Found", the final number of Lincolnshire Posy, transcribed for band and chorus, based on Grainger's original setting for chorus and orchestra; the original, unpublished band version of "Spoon River", reconstructed from the recently discovered manuscript parts; and a rarely heard, otherworldly harmonization of the "Londonderry Air", the tune of "Danny Boy", scored for band, chorus, and organ. A significant amateur ethnomusicologist, Grainger drew extensively from folksong, collecting several hundred tunes from the English countryside himself. The repertoire recorded here includes English, Irish, Scottish, American, and Danish influences.

'this is what music is, and this is what music-making means' Gramophone

THE KING'S SINGERS THE KING'S SINGERS JOY TO THE WORLD

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music