First recording of this special collection of very early chamber music. Several pieces are world first recordings. Beautiful acoustics of a church of the time when the music was composed. Very diversified instrumental settings. Use of some nstruments that are nearly unknown today.

This is a collection of superb works for viola d'amore and small chamber ensemble performed on period instruments by Paul Miller and Chatham Baroque. The viola d'amore has six to seven strings, unlike the four of the modern viola, with each string paired with a string that is played sympathetically.

L’Echo du Danube is the poetic title given by Johann Schenck to his collection of pieces for viola da gamba, first published around 1703/04 as Opus 9 in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger — the most important music printer at the time. L’Echo du Danube is Schenk’s last complete work to survive, a fact that gives these pieces the weight of a musical testament. It comprises six sonatas for solo viol: the first two sonatas with basso continuo accompaniment, the next two also with basso continuo but this time ad libitum (optional), and the two last ones for viola da gamba without any accompaniment. Although Marin Marais already had published his first book of Pièces de Viole in 1686 and the flourishing English viol tradition was well known in Northern Europe, Schenk’s approach to the instrument is an important step in the process of creating an independent repertoire, specifically written for the viol by composers who were themselves performers and masters of its idiomatic idiosyncrasies. Although Schenck fully explores the potential of the viol as a melodic instrument, he clearly favoured, its possibilities of playing chords, in a manner strongly influenced by lute playing and repertoire: he sought to show the viol as an instrument that is harmonically independent, appropriate for polyphonic writing besides its talent for melodic singing. Hence his writing in such a distinctive way: abundantly using chords and double stops; continually alternating between the bass and the high register; and striving for an effective combination of luxurious harmony and depth of sound, without losing sight of the delicately cantabile voice of the viola.

This release features one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century for the early music world. Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba were considered lost until the discovery of an original print in a private collection in Germany in 2015. Perhaps some of the composer’s finest work for solo instrument, they are described by soloist Richard Boothby as being “... by turns virtuosic and expressive, Telemann uses all the techniques of the instrument to create satisfyingly complete Fantasias that are full of diversity.” One of the UK’s leading exponents of early music, Richard Boothby founded the Purcell Quartet in 1984 was a founder member of Fretwork in 1985. Since then his career has been bound up with these two groups with whom he records and tours; and through whom he plays the broadest range of repertory for the instrument from the earliest music to the latest contemporary music commissioned for viols.

French musician, harpsichordist, and composer Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was born on March 17, 1665 into a family of musicians and master instrument makers. Rather than just teach her brothers, Elisabeth’s father, a master harpsichord maker, taught her as well. She was one of the few well-known female composers of her time. She mastered many forms in her compositions. The present release showcases the three violin sonatas that she composed in 1707. The artists featured here – violinist Dana Maiben, gambist Sarah Cunningham, and harpsichordist Lisa Goode Crawford- are experts in historical performance practice and give these works the life they deserve.

REVIEW:

These are among the first violin sonatas in which the harpsichord makes the move from being part of the continuo, towards an obbligato role, becoming a true partner of the violin, which would eventually reach its zenith in the publication 34 years later of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts.

These are wonderful performances, with Dana Maiben playing a beautifully-sounding Nicola Amati violin of 1658, Sarah Cunningham on viola da gamba, and Lisa Goode Crawford on harpsichord. This performance was recorded more than five years ago, in July 2017, but I don’t believe it’s been published in any other form. This is an important disc of important music, and the sense of occasion that comes when one listens to it makes it clear that it was definitely worth the wait.

-- Music for Several Instruments

Centaur is pleased to release another album by prolific composer David Loeb. The works are Setsune, Five Reveries, Kiri, Fantasia sobre “Como la rosa en el guerto,” Three Friends of Winter, Suite No. 4, Cycle for the Lunar New Year, and Canon. Composer David Loeb was born in 1939 to a family which took music and the arts very seriously. He studied first with Peter Pindar Stearns at the Mannes College of Music, and then received his master’s degree from Yale. His catalog of compositions is quite remarkably extensive and diverse. In addition to the typical assortment of works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and voice, he has also composed extensively for Asian instruments and for early music instruments.

The first ever attempt to present the Brandenburg Concertos in accordance with Baroque tradition. The pioneering early Berlin recordings conducted with élan and elegance by Alois Melichar, a now nearly forgotten Austrian master. The set includes bonus tracks of the Third Brandenburg Concerto conducted by three legendary masters: Eugene Goossens, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and the Dane Georg Høeberg. All recordings from the collection of Claus Byrith and transferred using the best possible digital technology.

This programme portrays the ‘birth’ of the flute in France in the late 17th century and the following 40 years of its life as a new and fashionable instrument. A famous patron of the arts, King Louis XIV gathered elite composers and musicians to create the refinement, elegance and good taste that was demanded at his Paris Court. From the early petites pièces to more virtuoso suites and sonatas with their ornamented lyricism and grand dance rhythms, the mellow, robust and almost husky sounds of flutes from this period blend and weave around each other like the voices of two singers.

The music in this programme, featuring two vocal top soloists, Claron McFadden and Nora Fischer, reigns from the turn of the 16th to the 17th century, the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque era, a musically interesting and exciting time! Claudio Monteverdi is without any doubt the biggest Stella Lucente (shining star) of this album. He has always been considered the great master of this period and the title of the album could have been Monteverdi and his time. The highest goal is to touch the listener’s soul. This leads, among other things, to an enormous amount of publications with compositions for solo voice, two sopranos and basso continuo and, subsequently, the birth of the opera. Many musicians work in the courts of the great city-states (such as Ferrara, Florence, Mantua, Venice) and the papal residence in Rome. The Duke of Ferrara employs three sopranos under the name Concerto delle Donne. They are the pride of the court and perform in special concerts attended only by high-ranking courtiers and important guests. Composers are inspired by them, Luzzaschi in particular, who worked as the musical director at the same court. Not only were they highly skilled singers, they were also adept at playing various instruments, some of which you can hear on this album; the harp, viola da gamba and guitar.

Encouraged by Camille Saint-Saëns, violist/composer Henri Casadesus founded the Société des Instruments Anciens in 1901. Casadesus played viola d'amore, his brother Marius played quinton, and additional Casadesus family members and friends played viols, keyboards, and plucked strings. Unlike other early period-instrument revivals, the Casadesus ensemble performed not only baroque pastiche, but also new works which they commissioned and composed for their rediscovered instruments. This disc presents the premiere recordings of music written in the first decades of the twentieth century by Henri Casadesus and Ottorino Respighi for a "quartet of viols."

The Hamburger Ratsmusik – an ensemble looking back on a five-hundred-year history – teams up with the young countertenor Benno Schachtner on this recording of Georg Philipp Telemann’s Six Moral Cantatas. During the decades between 1720 and 1750 the middle class of the early Enlightenment sought moral education and ethical improvement deriving from human nature and reason as part of its never-ending quest for earthly happiness. It was with wit and charm that in his Moral Cantatas of 1735 Telemann set to music a poetic document conveying the spirit of this Enlightenment period. His only recently rediscovered Fantasies for Solo Viola da Gamba, published at the same time, are presented here in alternation with his Moral Cantatas, the title with which they were announced in a catalogue dating from August 1735. These two collections first performed together during a concert of the Hamburger Ratsmusik at the last Telemann Festival are now being presented here for the first time. These two works by Telemann were intended for professional and amateur musicians alike, and they seem to have met with special resonance among those interested parties who wanted to perform at home in smaller ensembles.

The cembalo-obbligato sonata reached its zenith in the middle decades of the eighteenth century; thought to date from the last fifteen years of J.S. Bach’s life, the composer was a pioneer of this compelling form, and for the soloistic role of the harpsichord in ensemble music. Critically acclaimed Amsterdam-based viola da gamba player Robert Smith joins with the celebrated Italian harpsichordist Francesco Corti to present a new recording of four prime examples of this genre, Bach’s three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord along with a sonata by his close contemporary Christopher Schaffrath. Completing the album is a new work by Robert Smith – based on Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament this innovative new work for the instrument absorbs broad influences from both the eighteenth century and the heavy-metal band Metallica.

This release is dedicated to one of the most esteemed musical practices of the Renaissance: the art of accompanying the voice with the viola da gamba. Cantare alla viola (singing with a viol) is the name for this practice, which was quite common at the time. The art of this practice lies in the ability of the “viola” player to arrange and play madrigals to accompany one single voice, as a lutenist or vihuela player commonly does. Cantar alla Viola has careful selected some of the finest pieces of the Italian Renaissance in order to illustrate the intimate and skillful musical practice of Cantare alla viola. The pieces vary from the subtle and transparent trecento 2-voice ballades of Magister Piero and Andrea da Firenze played on the viella, to the exquisite and virtuous madrigals for one soprano by Luzzascho Luzasschi, accompanied by the viola da gamba. The Renaissance villanelle and 3-voice madrigals by Luca Marenzio and Costanzo Festa, are adapted for the polyphonic playing of two different bowed vihuelas. Solo pieces have been added to the release to show the instrumental practice on a bowed vihuela through arrangements of lute and keyboard pieces by composers such as Marco Antonio Cavazzoni or Francesco da Milano.

The Musicalisches Lob Gottes in der Gemeine des Herrn may be regarded as the impressive high point of Telemann’s printed annual cycles. The present recording of three cantatas from this annual cycle tends more to chamber musical design. It interprets the compositions as intimate sacred music for which an ensemble with eight members completely suffices in performance respects – something corresponding to the reality in performance practice in most German church music ensembles in the eighteenth century. In view of the intimate interpretation of these cantatas, the intermezzi interspersed in them from the Twelve Fantasies for Viola da Gamba Solo have the effect of a meditative deepening of the religious subject matter. The four fantasies selected are elaborated with fine art and are just as richly arrayed musically as are the church compositions.

Five years after the publication of his first book of sonatas, Jean-Marie Leclair, the great exponent of the emerging French violin school, released his second book. He had continued to be influenced by the lyricism and virtuosity of Italian models but, concerned that the technical demands of his writing might prove excessive, ensured that a handful could be played either on the flute or the violin. Yet he continued to make considerable advances and the level of melodic invention and expressive intensity remained untouched, the result of a fusion of Italianate fire and French elegance. Together with Naxos 8.572866 this is the first complete recording of Leclair’s Op 2 Sonatas.