Soprano Claudine Ansermet and lutenist Paolo Cherici frequently appear on recording releases which Glossa Cabinet from time to time is putting out, and drawn from the now-disbanded Symphonia label. Here, the delightful chansons of Claude Le Jeune are interspersed with preludes, dances and fantasias for solo lute by figures such as Mertel, Perrichon and Adriaenssen. Le Jeune worked at the court of Henri IV before being succeeded by Pierre Guédron, and was one of the most prolific and significant composers of the second half of the 16th century, and one of the chief exponents of “musique mesurée à l’antique”

To follow his illuminating recordings of music by Claude Debussy (GCD 922206) and Camille Saint-Saëns (GCD 922210) with the Brussels Philharmonic, Hervé Niquet is now turning his away from the Baroque to the dramatic realism of the end of the 19th century. Gustave Charpentier has, rather unfairly, become known for being the composer of only the one work, that operatic reflection of Zolaesque naturalism, Louise, first performed in 1900. Are people aware that this opera had been composed (at least in part) on one of the seven Roman hills, more than ten years earlier? And that Italian period in Charpentier's life (1888-1890) had actually turned out to be his most fruitful creative time? It was there in Rome that he worked on two masterly symphonic works, the one elaborating his Impressions d'Italie which was to enjoy significant success right up until the Second World War, whilst the other - more experimental - called for three soloists, a chorus and a large symphonic orchestra: La Vie du poète. It was thanks to the quality of his chorus La Fête des myrtes and his magnificent Wagnerian cantata Didon that the composer won, in 1887, the famous Prix de Rome, opening the way for him to have a Bohemian séjour in the Villa Medici. This third release in the Prix de Rome series by Glossa (in conjunction with the Palazzetto Bru Zane) is set to demonstrate a composer whose range of talents far extends beyond the - admittedly enchanting - aria Depuis le jour...

Almost all the music performed on these separately available discs is, or has been, available in competing versions. But Le Concert Spirituel under Hervé Niquet’s experienced direction achieves an expressive intensity which overshadows its rivals. Charpentier wrote over 30 Tenebrae for the last three days of Holy Week and their texts, drawn from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, inspired the composer to extraordinary heights of anguished declamation. Much of the music is a skilful blend of French court air with Italian monodic lamentazioni, which he had encountered during his three years in Rome as Carissimi’s pupil. The five Lenten (Carême) Meditations on the path to Christ’s Crucifixion belong to a group of ten such pieces which are hardly less striking than the Tenebrae for their expressive ardour. If the performances are not always refined, they lack nothing in respect of fervent and idiomatic declamation.

The Mass for M de Mauroy, one of 11 such pieces by Charpentier, is among the finest of them. The identity of M de Mauroy has not been established but he deserves a pat on the back either for commissioning, or just being associated with a work of such beauty and eloquence – the Gloria and Credo are outstandingly affecting. Niquet, his voices and his ensemble of woodwind and strings reveal its strengths with full-blooded emotional responses and a convincing stylistic sense.

-- Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine Reviewing Glossa 921602

Cyril Auvity heads the cast in a new recording of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers in a production being released by Glossa. Auvity is the lovelorn Orpheus who ventures, with his lyre, into the Underworld to plead with Pluto (Etienne Bazola) for the return of his Eurydice (Céline Scheen), struck down in her prime by a snakebite, being encouraged in his efforts by Proserpine, the wife of the ruler of Hades (Floriane Hasler). This is a two-act chamber opera, written in 1686, and it is not known whether Charpentier ever composed any more music for the piece (the drama stops at a tantalizing moment in the well-known story). Even still, the composer appears to have invested substantial inspiration into the work, which will have been performed in front of the composer’s patron, Mademoiselle de Guise by a group of singers working within the limitations imposed by Jean- Baptiste Lully’s “musical monopoly” of the time. For this recording, keyboard-player Ronan Khalil directs his Ensemble Desmarest. The demanding lead role of this entertainment continues Auvity’s strong current presence in French Baroque music-making – as well as his connection with Glossa. His Orpheus follows his previous Charpentier Stances du Cid release on the label, as well as appearances in operas by Campra, Destouches and Lully.

Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix have recently embarked on a startling and radical new stage in their career which involves a collaboration with Rosas, the ensemble of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, and which unites the music of the late 14th century Ars subtilior and contemporary dance. In July 2011 the world première of the production Cesena took place at Avignon in the medieval Cour d'honneur of the Palais des Papes (the performance commencing at 4.30am!), and Graindelavoix has recorded since then a "soundtrack" album for release on Glossa. The two ensembles are now performing across Europe and beyond in a tour which is scheduled to continue until 2014. The contents of the album mirror the production onstage, and draw on the almost abstract structures, with their complex and fascinating contrapuntal relations, of this early polyphony, much of it deriving from the Codex Chantilly. Through the performances with Rosas, Schmelzer is hoping to gain new insights into performing this repertoire. As to the meaning of the album's title, Schmelzer says that Cesena is only a good one if it functions in all different directions at once; whether it refers to an Italian city whose population was slaughtered in the late 14th century (a "Passendale" of its age), at the time of the Western Schism in the Catholic Church as both Rome and Avignon struggled for control, or to a very important Franciscan, Michael of Cesena who fought for a church in poverty against all the decadence of power or, indeed, to other ideas....

To complete a triptych of recordings presenting an alternative view of performance practice from across a century of Franco-Flemish polyphony, Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix now turn their attention to music by Alexander Agricola and his contemporaries in Cecus. Following on from the two earlier albums, "Joye" and "La Magdalene", Cecus concerns itself with music associated with blind players (notably two fiddlers from Bruges) and memory and commemoration (laments on the deaths of Agricola and Johannes Ockeghem) coming from the chapel of Philippe le Beau and Juana of Castile. Alexander Agricola's own musical world - and especially Cecus non judicat de coloribus - crosses the border between theory and practice, between flamboyant experience and rational construction and constantly evokes blindness (to see and not to see) in relation to memory and written or improvisated music, but also in connection with those songs of mourning. Graindelavoix's new CD for Glossa promises polyphony in sharply-articulated, richly-coloured performances, provided with athletic vocal gestures by Schmelzer and his Antwerp-based ensemble of musicians from Spain, Estonia, the UK, France and Belgium.

The operas of Francesco Cavalli have earned him a secure place among the masters of the 17th century, yet he has remained almost completely unknown as a composer of sacred music. While the greater part of his time and energy was undoubtedly devoted to the 32 operas which he produced in Venice, Cavalli nonetheless pursued a constant and parallel career in sacred music which spanned 60 years of activity at St. Mark’s. When Cavalli published the ‘Musiche sacre’ in 1656 he was at the height of his creative powers and at the apex of his career. As with both Monteverdi’s 1610 collection and his Selva morale of 1640, Cavalli’s ‘Musiche sacre’ contains components which can be used to fulfil the liturgical requirements of a wide range of feast days. On this recording we present the principle musical items which could have been heard at second Vespers on a feast of the Virgin Mary (in this case the Feast of the Assumption) either at St. Mark’s or at one of a variety of other Venetian churches. It is no more and no less a single unified musical “work” than are Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine, nor can it be, since the liturgy has its own formal requirements going far beyond the music. An expert group of vocal soloists join the instrumentalists of Concerto Palatino in this landmark recording made in the mid nineties which Glossa is now proud to recover for its Schola Cantorum Basiliensis series.

The dazzling operatic duets and arias that are featured on this album come from Baroque master, Francesco Cavalli. Promising vocalists Giulia Semenzato and Raffaele Pe join together for this release. The beautiful mix of soprano and countertenor pull at the heartstrings of any listener, conveying the emotions that Cavalli was so adept at portraying. The vocalists are accompanied by La Venexiana, conducted by master of Italian Baroque style, Claudio Cavina.

Where next for Claudio Cavina and La Venexiana after their exhilarating run of recordings of Monteverdi madrigals, operas and much more? One route is proving to be in the direction of Francesco Cavalli, the 17th century composer who spent much of his working life in Venice, starting off as a chorister in St Mark's Basilica when Monteverdi himself was in charge. Although Cavalli has been known as a composer of Venetian seicento sacred music, it is his prolific contribution in the field of opera - where he became one of the leading figures involved in the development of commercial opera companies from the 1640s onwards - that has been receiving greater attention from artists in more recent times. And it is with a dramma per musica in Artemisia from the mid 1650s, with its tale of love, deceit and honour and the upholding of the virtues of the Venetian Republic (all this richly captured by the expressive style of Cavalli), that Cavina has chosen to contribute to that fresh look at Cavalli's music on this new recording from Glossa. Singers in the established style of La Venexiana, including the vocal star of 'Round M, Roberta Mameli and a recent finalist in the Handel Singing Competition in London in Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli (who takes the role of the love-torn Queen Artemisia, a character strong enough to drink her dead husband's ashes...) give vent to this glorious display of Venetian operatic splendour.

First performed at the Paris Opéra in 1802, Sémiramis by Charles-Simon Catel is an example of the revival at that time of the tragédie lyrique inherited from Gluck. A work with a touch of exoticism (Babylon), expressing the pathos of isolation, but also with pomp in its ambitious finales, the work bade farewell to the 'Louis-XVI style' and announced, in a neo-Classical style, the grand opéra of the Romantic period. But it came at a time of polemics between supporters and detractors of the new Paris Conservatoire, where Catel, at that time professor of harmony there, had made so many enemies that the audience pit at the Opera was bristling with vengeful hostility when the curtain rose on the first act... Hervé Niquet and his Le Concert Spirituel, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary, continue with their untiring rehabilitation of forgotten tragédies lyriques (we might recall here their Callirhoé by Destouches, Sémélé by Marais, Proserpine by Lully and Andromaque by Grétry) with this recording of Catel's Sémiramis made during the course of the Festival de Radio France, in Montpellier, in July 2011. The typical skill of Niquet when it comes to selecting singers - among who shine here are Maria Riccarda Wesseling and Andrew Foster-Williams - further helps to make this new operatic release a stimulating surprise for all lovers of the best in French music.

Some 15 years ago, the hitherto unknown "Carlo G Manuscript" was purchased at a Vienna jumble sale for the princely sum of 60 euros. Once a doctoral thesis has been prepared based on this document and it had been made available on the internet in the form of scanned images, the manuscript was sold by Sotheby's at auction to an anonymous buyer in 2007, as a consequence of which it has once again disappeared. The fact that the surname of its author had become illegible as a result of a smudge deepens the mystery surrounding the manuscript even further - however, although being from the same time as that of the famous Carlo Gesualdo, everything points to the fact the prince of Venosa was not the composer being searched for... An extensive selection of pieces from the manuscript can now be heard courtesy of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, performed by the ensemble Profeti della Quinta, and directed by the organist Elam Rotem. These are liturgical pieces dating from the early seventeenth century which undoubtedly would have sounded in Central Italy in a very similar from to what can be heard on this recording: one of the manuscript's peculiar characteristics is that it includes, exactly - note for note - what is expected from the singers and organist. This embraces the complex ornamentations which, by and large, musicians would improvise and wouldn't be written down. The acoustic of the Chiesa dei Santi Eusebio e Vittore de Peglio, Italy provides added authenticity to a project which is entrancing from every angle.

The Responsoria by Carlo Gesualdo, published in 1611, represent a remarkable emotional outpouring in sacred repertory from a composer who was living out his final years amidst melancholy thoughts and an increasingly precarious state of health. It was also significant that these Holy Week pieces should appear in the same year as the complex works in the Sixth Book of Madrigals: an association which La Compagnia del Madrigale are keen to make with their new recording of the Responsoria in a striking new release from Glossa. Having already responded to the stylistic subjectiveness of the madrigals the highly-skilled a cappella vocal ensemble (which includes singers of the calibre and experience of Giuseppe Maletto, Daniele Carnovich or Rossana Bertini) turns its attention to subject matter covering torment, suffering, blood and death. Over three CDs Gesualdo's creative musical response to the Passion of Christ is interspersed with spiritual madrigals from some of his best-known contemporaries (Luzzaschi, Marenzio, de Macque and Vinci), whose religious texts further underline the madrigalesque nature of the Responsoria. Once again, Marco Bizzarini supplies a fascinating booklet essay which places Gesualdo's music in a realistic rather than "hysterical" context.

Classical Music

On this 1995 recording previously released on Accent, the vocal ensemble La Colombina presents a varied selection of mainly 16th-century Spanish vocal secular pieces. Starting with Juan del Encina, probably the greatest Spanish song composer of the late Renaissance, the programme also includes important works by Francisco Guerrero, Juan Vasquez, Mateo Romero and anonymous composers, in a journey that takes the listener well into the early Baroque. La Colombina is a vocal ensemble specializing in music from the Renaissance and the early Baroque eras. The group was founded in 1990 by four vocalists who also boast extraordinary solo careers- coprano Maria Cristina Kiehr, alto Claudio Cavina, tenor Josep Benet, and baritone Josep Cabre. The group’s repertoire largely consists of music by Spanish composers, with the occasional foray into Italian or French music. The name of the group comes from the manuscript “Cancionero de la Colombina” that is kept in the Cathedral of Seville in the Biblioteca de la Colombina.

Fabio Bonizzoni has come up with another immaginative and enticing programme for his latest Glossa release, creating an Italian "pastiche" drama with music by André Campra and with the starring presence of soprano Roberta Invernizzi. André Campra, a major figure in the world of French opera between Lully and Rameau, was clearly not very impressed by the former's discouragement of Italian musical practices inside France when he was elevated to the post of surintendant de la musique du roi. In many of Campra's French opéras-ballets and comédieslyriques written by him as the 18th century was emerging out of the 17th are to be found interpolated many dashing arias with texts in Italian (Campra's father was Italian-born like Lully padre e figlio) and from some of these Fabio Bonizzoni and Angela Romagnoli have chosen and concocted Gli strali d'Amore (Love's Arrows), thereby, curiously, following in the footsteps of Campra himself - who was a dab hand at this activity himself, as demonstrated by his own Les Fragments de Mr. De Lully. Joining Bonizzoni and Invernizzi (Glossa has recently issued a "Portrait" album involving the Milanese soprano) in this delightful sequence of recitatives and da capo arias recorded in Tuscan Brunello are the impressive Cyril Auvity and Salvo Vitale, and a sprightly La Risonanza.