Cheo Hurtado, virtuoso of the cuatro and bandola guayanesa, presents part of the vast traditional Venezuelan repertoire, mainly derived from pre-baroque and baroque Hispanic music: melodic richness and rhythmic vigour. Cheo Hurtado (born Asdrúbal José Hurtado on 2 May 1960 in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela) is one of the most celebrated virtuoso performers of the cuatro, a small four-stringed instrument central to Venezuelan folk tradition. The Spanish conquest reached Venezuela fairly early. Christopher Columbus had already landed near the Orinoco delta by his third journey, in 1498. As it was near to Santo Domingo and Cuba, which were the gates to all contact with the homeland, Venezuela was exposed to a good deal of musical input from Baroque Europe. In addition to church and secular art music, Spanish popular music forms were also introduced throughout the continent of South America. These musical forms may have already gained African and American influences while in Spain. In the course of time, they turned into traditional music. Cheo Hurtado learned to play the cuatro with his father, performed at an early age as a soloist, and was awarded several prizes. He has played with various groups, including Gurufío (one of the most popular bands in Venezuela). He also plays the bandola llanera, mandolina, and the Cuban tres.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Compositions by Wayan Lotring, one of the greatest Balinese musicians of the first half of the 20th century, finally a part of the musical mythology in a country where the soul of an artist is nature’s most coveted gift, and the most sacred that the gods can grant. Lotring was born in 1898; every night at the age of six he played with the members of his family and accompanied the performances of shadow theater. A few years later, he had a ‘semar pegulingan’ made which would become the most beautiful gamelan of Bali. Because the semar pegulingan is pure crystal, it’s water that flows from the still limpid spring, it’s the voice of the gods- gamelan once being reserved for princes, they were built with infinite care. Never before will one have heard a more beautiful, a more limpid, a more perfect one than his. In the 20s, his fame crossed borders and in 1936 he spent several weeks in Ceylon- in the meantime Asia had heard of him: the greatest Indian dancers made the trip to visit him, artists from Siam and even Japan met him, thus recognizing his reputation for being the greatest musician in the Far East of his time.

The main instruments in Baluchi music are recorded on this album -the most prominent (the sorud fiddle), the oldest (the doneli double flute), and the most recent and brilliant (the benju zither)- that presents the art of a freedom-loving nomadic people, living from hand to mouth and always on the move. The Baluchi are a people of about five million individuals, scattered mainly across Pakistan (of which they occupy nearly half), the South-East of Iran, Afghanistan and the Emirates of the Persian Gulf, where they form a large immigrant community. Because of their origins and language, they belong to the Iranian world; they seem to have occupied first the centre of Iran (Kermân), or perhaps even the north, before migrating towards the southeast. It was only in the 18th century that a Baluchi national identity arose. It won over and brought together various tribes, essentially on the condition that they would speak the same language. Probably around that time, epic poetry was developed between them, thus unifying all the groups and sub-groups, whatever nuances there might be, into an entity which we now call the Baluchi people.

Bon is considered to be the ensemble of pre-Buddhist beliefs of the Tibetans; it embodies a vast mass of ritual practices bearing on exorcism, divination and the appeasement of wrathful divinities, and elaborate teachings for spiritual realisation -which place Bon among the great mystico-philosophical systems of the world despite it's relatively small number of followers. These recordings illustrate various facets of the religious activities of the Bonpos through their chant and their psalmodic recitation. They intend to bring to a wider audience the musical aspects of a ritual tradition that is largely unknown to the Western World and has remained obscure to the Tibetan themselves.

The history of traditional Japanese music extends from it's origins in the second century BC up to the present, encompassing five main periods: prehistoric, ancient, mediaeval, modern, and contemporary. During each of these periods, specific forms of music developed, some of which are still extant today. Japanese music as we know it today was born during the mediaeval period, with the appearance of Wasan (Buddhist chant performed in Japanese), of Heikyoku (Heike epics, sung and recited with accompaniment on the biwa lute), and of No (theater plays involving dialogues, mime and dance. The Yonin No Kai Ensemble from Tokyo was created in 1957 when each of it's four members was awarded a gold medal in Moscow at the International Competition of Traditional Instruments. Since then, the ensemble has given many concerts, both in Japan and abroad, as is evident from their discography, these artists have made an exceptional contribution to Japanese music, ancient as well as contemporary: they have recorded, so far, as much as fifteen albums with traditional music, and some ten albums with contemporary compositions.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Fernanda Jiménez Peña (1923-2006) was born in 1923 in Utrera, one of the towns located in the main cantaora region. Hailed as one of the greatest cantaoras of the last decades, Fernanda accompanies her voice of echoing sobs with gesticulation and superhuman concentration. Silence, panting, and gestures of impotence and agony transform her more inspired concerts into magnificent, liberating events laden with tragic pathos. Bernarda Jiménez Peña (1927-2009), Fernanda’s sister, is a cantaora specialised in the bulerías, which she performs with incomparable mastery. Although the bulerías have been considered as a minor form of cante, they are extremely difficult to execute due to their pulsating rhythm and the exactitude of their compás. Bernarda’s bulerías convey infinitely complex psychological states and adapt to a wide variety of melodic lines, to create a personal, disorderly and expansive mood, further enhanced through her sense of intimacy and ability to move listeners.

Those who endeavor to live on this Atlantic Archipelago have been torn away from both Europe and Africa. They are imbued with saudade, the nostalgia born from separation. From hardships, the Creole language, and cross-bred poetry and culture were born, which the music from the various islands of Cape Verde is now taking over the seas. Cape Verde appeared for the first time on a geographical map in 1460 when this uninhabited archipelago was discovered by Portuguese sailors some five hundred kilometres off the coast of Senegal. Cape Verde history began a few years later, with the settlement of poor colonists and adventurers sent by the Portuguese Crown, followed by slave deportation from Africa, in order to cultivate the islands’ mostly dry and barren land. Finally, on July 5th, 1975, after five centuries of Portuguese domination, Cape Verde obtained its independence. The identity of Cape Verde is based on the forced meeting between the dominating, colonizing culture of the Portuguese masters, and the few scattered elements of various African cultures which were clandestinely passed on through generations of slaves. Today, the Black, White and cross-bred Cape Verde inhabitants, or emigrants, are all proud of their rich heritage of music and poetry, born from these confrontations and mixtures, and the morna –now famous throughout the world– has become its best ambassador.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Cinuçen Tanrikorur's case is that of a genius who, revitalized by an ancestral heritage, crystallizes the transports of his imagination in traditional forms and intentions; the crystals are the creations, the forms are the modes and the various frameworks of composition (pesrev, semâï, beste etc.), and of improvisation (taksim) and the intention is that of traditional art in general and of Moslem art in particular: it must contribute to the most central function of the man who is to be an intermediary between heaven and earth, the khalifat (cf. Titus Burckhardt, “The Art of Islam”). Cinuçen Tanrikorur's style is a kind of paroxysm of Turkish savant art. The voice is characterized by the variety and the subtlety of intonations and timbres, and is placed under the sign of the symbolic conjunction of air and water: a fluidity which transcends both of these elements to the point of evoking the ether, and then the quintessence of sound. The Sufi doctrine of the alternation of light and veils is prolonged here in the domain of sound vibration: one sometimes finds oneself where the “when” and the “where” no longer exist, when “sound” and “silence” are one. The initial intention and the concomitant ambiance permitted the autodidact to invent a style of the ud which is completely traditional at its foundation and completely unusual in its form. The result is a different tuning of the lower strings (4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 5th), and a right hand technique of playing without a rolling motion, and a fantastic dynamic of the left hand which explores to the utmost the intimacy of each string in order to elicit harmonic resonances which had not even been suspected before. Lyricism, fluidity, precision and hypersensitivity are the requirements of this style which has already begun to develop into a school.

Wang Weiping belongs to the generation of pipa lute performers that has taken over brilliantly from the historical masters, and is by no means inferior to them, as far as both virtuosity and musicality are concerned: traditional pieces and compositions under the emblematic patronage of the princess Wang Zhaojun. The pipa, an instrument with a rich repertoire and advanced playing technique, has long been in the hands of the professionals, and occupies an important place at the Conservatory as well as concerts. The generation born after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) has taken over brilliantly from its historical masters, Li Tingsong (Suzhou 1906-1976), Lin Shicheng (born in 1922 in Shanghai), and even Liu Dehai (born in 1937 in the Hebei), and is by no means inferior to them, as far as both virtuosity and musicality are concerned. Wang Weiping is one of the most remarkable representative of this new generation. Incidentally, it should be noted that Chinese culture is one of the few cultures in the world to grant women the rank they deserve as instrumentalists. She is a specialist in the thousand year old repertoire of Dunhuang scores transcribed by Ye Dong, which she has played in Hong Kong, Macao and Japan. She is pursuing her international career as a soloist and within the ensemble “Fleur de Prunus”, and is working with modern Chinese contemporary composers.

The three masters Dariush Talâ'i, Mohammad Musavi and Majid Kiâni, present the refinement and creativity of Persian music: from theradif (canonical ensemble of melodic forms for each modal structure), they are free to improvise, find melodies and create according to their own taste… Nothing being more ephemeral than an oral tradition’s music, in the mid-19th century, great musicians decided to preserve what they had salvaged of their ancient heritage for posterity. Collating musical material from the four corners of Iran, they formulated a model repertoire, theradif, designed to lead through methodical study to the very core of the art and its musical inspiration. The aim of creating the radif was to preserve not only melodies, but also modal structures which, in time, would have become hermetic and eventually extinct, without models at one’s disposal to refer to.

The diatonic button accordion, from the beginning of the 19th century, became hugely popular in traditional rituals, secular celebrations and love songs, bringing a new aesthetic to Masikoro music in the south-west of the Great Island. The Masikoro's appropriation of the instrument began with modifying it's scale to suit indigenous ears and music. This involved carving the reeds of the accordion to turn it into a "prepared accordion". As the instrument is very difficult to find in new condition, musicians play on old models inherited from their fathers, sometimes even their grandfathers. Repaired several times, they produce noises and clicks from the bellows that become elements of expression in the music. Often accompanied by singing, rattles and drums, the accordion now plays a major role in various traditional rituals such as possession sessions, ceremonies of exorcism, of circumcision and funerals. It also accompanies dancing and songs of nostalgia, and sometimes the end of market days.

These recordings, made between 1960 and 1987 by Jean Malaurie during many missions to the Far North, are intended to use their music to reveal the heart and spirit of the Inuit people, forged in a demanding environment. The Inuit live in one of the world's most vast areas. From Siberia -their homeland- to Greenland, they occupy some of the most desolate icy deserts on the planet. Inuit civilisation has adapted to it's terrible environment in one of the greatest challenges of courage and wisdom in human history. Through songs and drums (warrior choruses, throat singing, poignant melodies), the Inuit bear witness to their myths and legends, their identity, their hidden being and their strength in the midst of desolate spaces that would have driven the weakest characters to despair.