Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) was revered by his contemporaries as one of the greatest European composers. After his training, he worked in the most important cities and courts of Italy as well as in Barcelona at the court of King Charles III of Habsburg. When he was elected Emperor as Charles VI, he brought the composer to the Habsburg court in Vienna as vice-chapelmaster. At the height of his creative powers, Caldara created the oratorio Gioseffo che interpreta i sogni (Joseph, the interpreter of dreams) for the Viennese imperial court in 1726. It takes up the Old Testament story of Joseph, who interprets dreams in prison during his Pharaonic captivity, until this even reaches the Pharaoh. He has him released from prison and finally elevates him to the rank of minister because of his gift. In addition to the biblical figures of Joseph and Pharaoh as well as the baker and the cupbearer, the librettist Giovanni Battista Neri adds the figure of the deceitful servant Zedekiah and a narrator who comments on the action in a lyrical manner. Caldara set his text to music according to the musical taste of the emperor, who, as an accomplished connoisseur, also appreciated artful counterpoint and fugue technique. The work is also characterized by it's colourful orchestration, in which instruments such as the chalumeau and psaltery are also used. Antonio Caldara's immense oeuvre comprises several thousand works, which are only gradually becoming known to the public.

Jean-Baptiste Lully's Proserpine was composed in 1680 in collaboration with his trusted librettist Philippe Quinault. The first recording on GLOSSA was made in 2006/2007 following stage performances in Paris and Versailles with a first-class group of soloists who were very familiar with the special demands of French Baroque vocal technique. Herve Niquet and his ensemble Le Concert Spirituel gave us a magnificent musical firework display of French baroque opera on the first release, which still ignites today.

In physics, entropy measures the degree of disorder in a system and the associated arrangement possibilities. Lina Tur Bonet chose this term as the title for her new CD on GLOSSA, on which she - together with theorbist Jadran Duncumb - interprets Italian violin music of the so-called stylus phantasticus. This style developed in Italy in the late 16th century from the practice of improvisation. It is characterised by extremely expressive playing in which short, sometimes dissonant and bizarre figures, sometimes extreme chromaticism, rapid virtuoso runs and sections with ostinato bass are combined as in a free improvisation. Johann Mattheson confirmed this impression in his book Der vollkommene Kapellmeister in 1739: 'For this style is the freest and most unrestrained way of setting, singing and playing that one can imagine, since one soon comes up with these and then those ideas, since all kinds of otherwise unusual passages, hidden ornaments, meaningful turns and embellishments are produced, without actual observation of the act and tone; sometimes hasty, sometimes hesitant; sometimes monophonic, sometimes polyphonic; sometimes also for a short time after the act: without sound-mass; yet not without intention to please, to hurry and to astonish. '

Tomas Louis de Victoria is one of the best Spanish composers of all time and his Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae is his most important major work. In this collection, Victoria sets the Holy Week celebrations from Palm Sunday to Good Friday to music. The monumental work includes eighteen responsories, nine laments of the prophet Jeremiah, two passions, motets, hymns and other liturgical texts in polyphonic vocal settings. The ensemble La Colombina, together with the Gregorian chant specialists of the Schola Antiqua, has the merit of having recorded this work for the first time in it's entirety and within it's liturgical context. This famous recording was made as a live recording in April 2005, was out of print in recent years and is now available again as a re-release on 3 CDs.

Benedicte Maurseth is an important figure in the Norwegian folk music scene as a composer, performer and author. While her music is rooted in the rich tradition of the Hardanger fiddle, it also reflects an open approach to creativity and the present. Together with Kiya Tabassian and Patrick Graham, she delves here into vast soundscapes of pure, muted colors and rhythms that are by turns contemplative and frenzied, transporting and navigating through captivating, imaginary worlds without borders from north to south and east to west.

Having barely arrived in London, Handel laid the foundations for his unprecedented operatic career in 1711 with the magic opera Rinaldo. In addition to the novel Italian music, the fantastic plot, which exploited all the possibilities of baroque theatre, also met with enthusiasm from the audience: love, anger and passion amid sensational scene changes, fire-breathing monsters, flying dragons and an exotic magical island. The libretto, based on an episode from Torquato Tasso's epic Gerusalemme liberata, which was popular at the time, tells the story of the young crusader Rinaldo, who would much rather marry his beloved Almirena than fight and who must resist the magical arts of the sorceress Armida - who is in love with him - in order to find happiness. Twenty years later, in 1731, Handel fundamentally revised his successful opera once again. This rarely performed version can be heard here on CD for the first time and features an outstanding cast of singers, above all the leading Italian countertenor Filippo Mineccia in the main role and Roberta Mameli and Vivica Genaux as the ladies fighting for him. Marco Angioloni, who also sings Goffredo, conducts the young ensemble Il Groviglio with verve.

Vellard: 7 Dernieres Paroles Du Christ En Croix (Les), Staba

DESTOUCHES, A.C.: Callirhoe [Opera]

Tenor Jonatan Alvarado and vihuelist Ariel Abramovich browse through the folios of the Huehuetenango song manuscript: 15 volumes of polyphony and Gregorian chants from Northern Guatemala. From the more than 350 works recorded between 1582 and 1635, the dream duo chose mass movements, motets, chansons and villancicos that offer a glimpse of the intercontinental musical traffic on the eve of the Baroque.?�Jonatan Alvarado is a singer and player of (very) old songs, be them contained by Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts scattered all over the world, or found in the oral traditions of Europe and the Americas. He took his first musical steps in the guitar class at the conservatory and in the municipal choirs of Mercedes, Buenos Aires. He then studied orchestral conducting, choral conducting and composition, and later graduated with honours in singing and lute. He is musical director and co-founder of the ensemble Seconda Pratica and a member of Da Tempera Velha and Sollazzo Ensemble.�Dazzled by a fantasy by composer Luys de Narvaez, Ariel Abramovich decided - being still a teenager - to dedicate exclusively to the lute and vihuela repertoire of the 16th century, a decision he has maintained to this day without any regrets. In 1996 he moved to Switzerland to study with his teacher and mentor, Hopkinson Smith, at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He has released several albums with a variety of musicians and is member of the ensemble Da Tempera Velha, dedicated to Medieval and early Renaissance Castillian repertoire.

'Ex Nihilo - Polyphony Out of the Order of Things' is the latest breathtaking programme from Graindelavoix.

BOHEMIAN WINDS: MUSIC OF FRANZ

PURCELL, H.: Dido and Aeneas [Opera]

GRAN PARTITA

Classical Music

Classical Music