The Ancient Greek word Kalon was used by philosophers to describe perfect physical and moral beauty. In this recording, the Albion Quartet and the Czech Philharmonic explore the different aspects of Kalon through the context in which beauty can exist in ugliness and darkness. This record is the result of Richard Blackford's doctorate at the University of Bristol, which investigates the use of polytempo. The recording is a way of applying the findings of his doctorate in a range of musical contexts. Kalon is unique as it explores the use of polytempo in the context of extended tonality and modality, which could be said surpasses the complexity posed by serialist works of a similar nature, such as Stockhausen's Gruppen or Carr�.

An iconic release that launched a celebrated series of 'London Sound' recordings, this album assembles an unparalleled ensemble of 40 cellos from The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. David Vernier writes: "Who knows where the idea for this incredible recording came from, but be assured, you've never heard anything quite like it before. The sound of 40 topnotch cellists from four London orchestras performing Saint-Sa�ns's The Swan or Rachmaninoff's Vocalise is indescribable-but when you hear the rich, warm, reedy resonance, you won't forget it."

This album is one of a pair of distinctive Saint-Sa�ns recordings, made with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It features several rarely-recorded works, alongside the premiere recording of Saint-Sa�ns's arrangement for tenor and orchestra of the iconic Danse macabre - which was originally a song for voice and piano to a poem Henri Cazalis before it's expansion into a celebrated tone poem. Australian conductor Geoffrey Simon is resident in London and has appeared there with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, and English Chamber Orchestra. Internationally he has appeared with the Adelaide, Atlanta, Israel, Moscow, and American Symphonies, among others. He is Music Director Emeritus of the Northwest Mahler Orchestra in Seattle, with which he has conducted the Mahler symphonic cycle and Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony. He is Consultant for Classical Special Projects for Arts Global, and has served as a jury member for Young Concert Artists, PianoTexas, Australian Cello Awards and Royal Over-Seas League.

Founded in 1985, the Kammerata Luxembourg has established itself at the centre of the country’s musical life with new commissions, concert series and recordings, supported by its ministry of culture. One recent enterprising series was named ‘The European Union Enlarges’, focusing on the chamber music of future EU states, and others such as this album have constructed enlightening juxtapositions of modern and Romantic-era repertoire. Few composers from the 19th century have exercised so potent an influence upon composers of our time as Robert Schumann. His abrupt changes of mood and intense, passionate commitment to individual expressive states have seized the imagination of many composers as well as listeners. Not the least of them is Schumann’s fellow German AribertReimann, In arranging the Fantasiestücke Op.73, Reimann altered not a note of the clarinet part while arranging the piano accompaniment for the unusual combination of flute, a harp and two violas, which enables him to explore both the sombre timbres and the more ethereal hues of the score. The Op.107 songs are united by both a theme of unrequited love and a mood of wistful other-worldliness, which Reimann accentuates with an often-Expressionist recasting of the piano part for string quartet. The other original work here is the collection of canonic pieces originally written for a pedal piano and arranged by Schumann’s contemporary Theodor Kirchner. Meanwhile, the two contemporary responses to Schumann are undertaken in a spirit of the most sincere love and homage. Kurtág’s instrumentation for clarinet, viola and piano refers back to the Op.132 Märchenerzählungen – fairy tales – and he peppers his score with both literary allusions and references back to the object of his homage. Jörg Widmann likewise evokes Schumann’s Op.23 Nachtstücke in his own trio for clarinet, cello and piano. Anyone fearful of new music need not hesitate: Widmann insinuates himself into a world of Romantic melancholy with uncanny skill.

David Bruce’s highly personal musical and spiritual responses to the natural world inspire his second Signum album, The North Wind was a Woman. Its title song-cycle, scored for folk-imbued ensemble and recorded with the acclaimed Nora Fischer, treats various aspects of the natural world as human characteristics. The Consolation of Rain is a moving reflection on loss and the restorative power of nature, while Cymbeline draws on ancient religious attitudes to the sun. Written for mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, the work takes its name from an old Celtic word meaning ‘Lord of the Sun.’ Bruce has achieved global recognition as a composer, celebrated for his richly colourful, poetic, and joyful music. Recent commissions include the BBC Proms, Carnegie Hall, Covent Garden, and Glyndebourne.

Everything I undertake misfires immediately. I produce dirty rubbish and that will accomplish nothing. So wrote Erik Satie in 1903 during a period of transition that saw him produce the last of his Rose + Croix style music in Verset laique & somptueux, but in making a living writing for the music halls, he also created hugely popular songs such as Je te veux. The works on this fourth volume of Satie's complete solo piano music were written between 1897 and 1906. They include rare theater music and tender waltzes that contrast with jaunty ragtime and pantomime dances. Nicolas Horvath began his music studies at the Academie de Musique et de Theatre Prince Rainier III, and at the age of 16 he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster. His other mentors include a number of distinguished international pianists, including Liszt specialist Leslie Howard. He is the holder of a number of awards, including First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions. He has become noted for hosting concerts of unusual length, sometimes lasting over twelve hours, such as the performance of the complete piano music of Erik Satie at the Paris Philharmonie before an audience of 14,000 people and recently played together with Philip Glass also at the Paris Philharmonie.

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Rossini’s comic masterpiece The Barber of Seville was based on Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’s French play Le Barbier de Séville and is the ultimate opera buffa. The score is a compendium of the composer’s wittiest and most brilliant writing, and includes the famous entrance aria Largo al factotum and a raft of superbly dynamic ensembles. This vibrant and youthful production features Florian Sempey, one of the world’s best Figaros, the ‘Rossini tenor’ Michele Angelini, vivacious and critically admired Catherine Trottmann, and the award-winning team of acclaimed director Laurent Pelly and conductor Jérémie Rhorer who directs his spirited period ensemble Le Cercle de l’Harmonie.

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REVIEW:

The cast are in modern dress but the interaction of characters is so forceful as to sweep away any lurking objections. Add to this some very fine singing, particularly from Michele Angelini’s glorious high tenor as Almaviva, and there is a great deal here to admire and enjoy.

– Lark Reviews

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Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in the beautiful staging by legendary Franco Zeffirelli, is a spectacle with a strong anaesthetising component, and a feast for the eyes. In this production “Zeffirelli returns to a representative Super classic line, renewing the complex mechanisms of almost all his other productions” (Il corriere musicale) with “beautiful classic costumes by Maurizio Millenotti and lights by Paolo Mazzon” (L'ape musicale). Carlos Álvarez is “of beautiful voice” (GP Opera) and “presumably today’s best Don Giovanni” (L'ape musicale) while “Irina Lungu is one of the best lyric sopranes” (L'ape musicale). “Donna Elvira, being sung by Maria José Siri was clearly and advantageously represented by her mellow and beguiling voice.” (MTG Lirica)

Carl Czerny, a student of Beethoven- whose music remained an inspiration- occupied an important place in the musical landscape of his time as both performer and pedagogue. His own students, such as Liszt, transmitted his teaching principles which were available in a large number of groundbreaking exercises and etudes. Carl Czerny wrote his 30 Etudes de mecanisme, Op 849 (’30 Studies of Technique’) at a time of exceptionally high demand for teaching material. The Studies make use of a limited range of keys but are intended as an introduction for students to the ‘School of Velocity.’ Perfectly placed between his simpler and more virtuosic Studies, Czerny’s Etudes have remained in demand to the present day. The works are performed here by Nicholas Horvath, who is known for his boundary-less musical explorations and his enthusiastic promotion of contemporary music.

In 1832 German-born Friedrich Burgmuller settled in Paris where he became internationally admired for his salon pieces and studies. At a time when demand for new teaching material had reached unprecedented heights, he supplied a sequence of works that appealed to the amateur market by virtue of their musical interest and appropriate technical demands. Written for the burgeoning market for piano teaching material, the set of 25 Easy and Progressive Studies, Op. 100 was soon followed by the 18 Characteristic Studies, Op. 109, a continuation of the earlier set, each piece bearing a charming title. They continue to provide a basis for teaching to this day. These works are performed by Swedish pianist Carl Petersson, whose previous albums for Grand Piano have won critical acclaim.

When the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals revived the solo suites of Bach in the first decades of the last century, he reminded both audiences and composers of the huge potential of his instrument to hold the stage in its own right, no less than a violin or a piano. Inspired by his charisma, and that of his successors such as Tortelier and Rostropovich, many modern composers have followed Bach’s example. The Italian cellist presents music by ten of them on this exciting debut album for Brilliant Classics. Tortelier and Rostropovich are represented by their own, little-known but highly imaginative works – a Circus Suite and an innocently titled but fearsomely challenging study respectively. Carter Brey, the principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, has also written for the instrument with inside knowledge, in a tango of big, seductive gestures preceded on Tarantino’s album by Latin-themed showpieces from Albeniz, Piazzolla and Rogerio y Taguell. Each half of the album is brought to a reflective close with a soliloquy by the modern Italian composer Giovanni Sollima. The cello’s melancholy moods are further explored by Ilse de Ziah and Sebastian Diezig, but Tarantino has chosen and ordered his repertoire to display the cello’s expressive range to its fullest. Mixing familiar and little-known composers, it’s a perfect introduction to the ever-expanding universe of solo cello music beyond Bach. Born in 1977, Luciano Tarantino is a performer and teacher with his origins in Puglia, in the far south of Italy. He has played with many of today’s greatest conductors and founded a music festival in the region of his birth. On this recording he plays a fine 1736 cello by Antonio Testore.

'O Rosa Bella' is the title of two popular 15th-century chansons, the earlier composed by Johannes Ciconia and the latter originally attributed to John Dunstable, but now to John Bedyngham. The text is based on a poem written by Leonardo Giustiniani (1300-1446): 'O lovely rose, My sweet soul; Let me not die In courtly love.' More than 20 works were based on this popular theme by composers including Johannes Ockeghem, and a Mass attributed to Gilles Joye. Born around 1420, in the Belgian town of Courtai, Joye worked as a singer and lived beyond his means. Having taken up a prestigious ecclesiastical post in Bruges, he was sent by the church fathers on a pilgrimage in order to atone for misdemeanors, but he continued to accumulate debts which compelled him to sell all his possessions; he died in penury. The song which Joye took as the basis for his Mass circulated widely during the 15th century; by a curious coincidence, Rosabella was also the name of Joye's lover with whom he lived openly (and imprudently). The recording follows performance practice of the time by using only male voices doubled by instruments for the two Masses and mixed voices for the Chansons. The chosen instrumentation includes shawm, slide trumpet, sackbut, cornetto, recorder, lute, gothic harp and psaltery: an authentic but richly colored ensemble. Although there are previous recordings of the Mass and the chansons, all the music recorded here has been newly transcribed from original sources by two of it's performers, Min J. Kim and David Brutti. The recording took place in the Umbrian church of San Francesco in Trevi, where the original organ survives, dating from 1508, and thus retaining a sound-world that resembles one known to the likes of Dunstable and Joye.

Poulenc once declared that ‘the musical transposition of a poem must be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.’ By the age of four he was already able to recite Mallarme’s Apparition by heart, and while still very young he made his first efforts at setting verses to music. He loved listening to poets read their own work, and he was a voracious reader, who saw his purpose as a composer to embellish to enrich but never to obscure the words or their meaning. Poulenc loved singers and good singing as much as poetry. All these cycles were written with particular artists in mind; several of them for his life partner, the baritone Pierre Bernac, but he also worked very closely with Clare Croiza and Denise Duval, among others. Thus his vocal lines reflect their individual personalities while being couched in his own, very singable, jazz-inflected idiom. Valentina Coladonato has chosen a path less travelled through Poulenc’s song oeuvre, avoiding the Chansons villageoises and Air chantes. Yet in La Fraîcheur et le feu, setting Poulenc’s contemporary Paul Eluard, we find an intensity and urgency of expression to rival his masterpiece, the Dialogues of the Carmelites. Motifs from the opera recur in another Eluard cycle, Le travail du peintre, which addresses seven modern painters in turn from Picasso to Villon. A bittersweet air lingers over the Dernier poeme by Desnos, Aragon’s C and the monologue La dame de Monte Carlo; but his extrovert, amusing music-hall side comes to the fore in Les chemins de l’amour, based on Jean Anouilh’s Leocadia and dedicated to Yvonne Printemps, who was a singer of light music. Even within the same cycle there are contrasting moments that eloquently illustrate Poulenc’s own artistic credo: ‘My music is my portrait’. A specialist in early and new music, the soprano Valentina Coladonato has worked with conductors including Riccardo Muti and Claudio Abbado. She and Claudio Proietti have also recorded the Shakespeare Sonnets of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco for Brilliant Classics (BC95548).

Born in 1971, Marco lo Muscio is an organist, pianist and composer who has performed on the great organs of Europe and the US. His own music been performed by the likes of Christopher Herrick, Thomas Trotter and David Briggs. This album focuses on another, more intimate side of his output. There are pieces dedicated to his mother and to the memory of his late father; tributes to both Debussy and Satie; meditations on literary themes from the work of J.R.R. Tolkien in a neo-medieval style; a pair of ricercari originally composed for organ, paying homage to Renaissance-era counterpoint; and to begin with Three American Preludes. Composed in 2001, the first two of the preludes were also Lo Muscio’s first works intended for the piano. Their bluesy harmonies and ostinato bass lines are inspired by the playing of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. The third of them (from 2009) is a homage to Jarrett, but composed in the style of prog rock – an idiom that the organist adopted with such success that he began to work with the guitarist Steve Hackett, founder member of Genesis. Since first meeting Hackett in 2008, Lo Muscio has made many transcriptions of prog rock classics (by Genesis and others) in a parallel career to his own compositions. The two careers intersect here with Horizons, written by Hackett in 1972 for the Genesis album Foxtrot, and itself derived from the Prelude to Bach’s G major Cello Suite. In 2009 Lo Muscio composed his own Meditations on Horizons, which transforms elements of Hackett’s piece with a habanera rhythm Having established a career as a pianist with a speciality in the music of Bach (as winner of the 1995 J.S.Bach International Piano Competition), Andrea Padova has attracted international praise for his performances and recordings. His performance of the Goldberg Variation has won glowing encomia: The Washington Post wrote that he ‘conveys the sense of successfully exceeding the limits of human possibility.’ This is his debut recording on Brilliant Classics.

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World Premiere recording on Video! Church corruption, human violence and a daughter who plots revenge on her abusive father – Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci has every ingredient for a gripping opera. At Bregenz, Johannes Erath brought Beatrice Cenci on stage for the first time. Although written 70 years ago, “one musically quickly associates Puccini or other Romantics“ (Neue Zurcher Zeitung), underlined by Goldschmidt´s own words, saying it became a real “Belcanto-Opera”. “Johannes Debus conducts the Wiener Symphoniker with true feeling for the score“. ”In the title role, Gal James is moving“ and ”the baritone Christoph Pohl has all the vocal charisma.” (The Telegraph). A “brilliantly focused staging of a neglected work“ (The Telegraph), a “great, wonderful evening“ (Deutschlandfunk Kultur).

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REVIEW:

Goldschmidt set out to write a latterday bel canto work, and his vocal lines are certainly always singable, over orchestral writing that references Mahler, Busoni and Schreker as well as standard 19th-century operatic models. The Bregenz cast, led by Gal James as Beatrice, with Dshamilja Kaiser as her stepmother Lucrezia and Christoph Pohl as the swaggering, monstrous Francisco Cenci, complete with diamante codpiece, is a very decent one, and Johannes Debus makes sure that Goldschmidt’s whirling, churning orchestral writing gets the attention it deserves.

– Guardian

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The Verbier Festival is one of classical music’s greatest events. In celebration of the festival’s 25th anniversary, this unique concert brings together 36 classical stars in an unprecedented evening of ingenious programming and captivating performances. The line-up includes the world’s greatest violinists, violists, cellists and pianists as well as other leading performers conducted by Valery Gergiev and Gabor Takacs-Nagy. Founder and director Martin T:son Engstroem writes: “We started this incredible adventure in 1994, and 25 years on, our Festival has become one of the world’s most important cultural events. But it is not just another festival; our vision right from the beginning was to build something which combined important musicians with a very visible youth and learning element. This is what we set out to do and this is what we achieved.”

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In 2018, marking the exact 100th anniversary of the Armistice ending World War 1, the all-star World Orchestra for Peace gave two UNESCO designated performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Symbolically one in each of the UK and Germany – for the BBC Proms in London and for the Würth Music Foundation in Künzelsau. Founded in 1995 by Sir Georg Solti to reaffirm, in his words, “the unique strength of music as an ambassador for peace”, leading players from the world’s finest orchestras gave this performance at ‘the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, 100 years after the guns fell silent in 1918. The performance is preceded by moving words of welcome and introduction from Prof. Würth and Lady Solti, both highlighting the need for brotherhood and joy amongst all nations, as reflected in the words of Schiller’s Ode in the choral finale. As a bonus, this release includes welcome and introductions from Prof. Dr. Reinhold Würth, Charles Kaye (Director/co-founder of the World Orchestra for Peace), and Lady Valerie Solti (Patron of the World Orchestra for Peace).

When Brooklyn-born, NYC native Kenny Werner came on stage for his concert in Stuttgart in 1992, he had just begun experimenting with the possibilities of solo piano programs. Over time he grew into the role of a high-quality craftsman who drew his strength not from the struggle for innovation, but from the elegance and finesse with which he incorporated the pianistic possibilities of the keyboard tradition into his music. In artistic self-understanding he was one step ahead of his era.

Werner’s advanced position was also evident in the repertoire that he brought with him to the studio room of the SDR (Süddeutscher Rundfunk) in Stuttgart on 10 June 1992. Most of the compositions were standards associated with the “Great American Songbook”, which he took as a starting point for letting his own creativity play on familiar melodies and forms. It didn’t interest Werner to have the material fall apart in the postmodern fashion typical of the time. On the contrary, for him it was about the perfection of an interior design of the songs, which allowed him to savor the freedom within the set frame of classical jazz patterns. The evening in Stuttgart thus becomes a link in the canon of Werner’s style.

Born in Brooklyn, NY on November 19, 1951 and then growing up in Oceanside, Long Island, Kenny Werner began playing and performing at a young age, first recording on television at the age of 11. Although he studied classical piano as a child, he enjoyed playing anything he heard on the radio. In high school and his first years of college he attended the Manhattan School of Music as a classical piano major. His natural instinct for improvisation led Kenny to the Berklee School of Music in 1970. There he sought tutelage of the renowned piano teacher Madame Chaloff. Her gracious wisdom and inspiration became a driving force in Kenny’s conception: A music conscious of its spiritual intent and essence. From Boston, Kenny traveled to Brazil with the saxophonist Victor Assis Brasil. There he met Victor’s twin brother, Brazilian pianist Joao Assis Brasil. He studied with Joao, who provided another piece of the puzzle for Kenny’s conception that would lead to Effortless Mastery, his landmark opus on how to allow the master musician from within to manifest. Kenny Werner has been a world-class pianist and composer for over forty years. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world.

Nikoghayos Tigranian belongs to the first generation of composers and folk song collectors who laid the foundation of an Armenian national style. Tigranian's piano transcriptions of folk dances is perhaps his most important legacy, emulating folk instruments and capturing and preserving colorful depictions of Armenian folk life that are simple in texture and rich with harmonic and melodic detail. His interest also extended to Persian improvisational vocal-instrumental poems or mugams; expressive pieces that influenced contemporaries and subsequent generations of composers. Mikael Ayrapetyan is a pianist composer and producer. He is also the founder and artistic director of the music project Secrets of Armenia, which aims to increase international awareness of Armenian classical music, and actively organizes concerts featuring Armenian music in venues around the world.

The American pianist Yvar Mikhashoff commissioned 127 of the world's leading composers to write tangos for him. Between 1983 and 1991 he received an eclectic, stylistically varied range of works that offer a unique body of contemporary tango music for the piano. Tango's origin was in the waltz and mazurka but has long embraced jazz and even electronic music. In this unique collection the span is international and individual, ranging from traditional evocations to include the twelve-tone approach of Milton Babbitt, the minimalism of Tom Johnson, and the very personal voice of Michael Nyman. Having commenced her international career at the age of eleven, Hanna Shybayeva has transformed from being a 'child prodigy' to the mature and exciting musician she is today. Her playing has been praised by both the public and the press for her deep musical interpretations, captivating energy, a great sense of form and a rich colour palette. Devoted to music in every form, Hanna enjoys her solo performances as much as being a partner in both chamber and vocal music.

This album marks the second release of the Carducci’s Shostakovich 15 project, which includes performances of the complete cycles of the Shostakovich Quartets in cities including Washington DC, London, Oxford, Cardiff, Bogota and concerts throughout the UK to mark the 40th anniversary of the composer’s death. Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality”, the Carducci Quartet is recognized as one of today’s most successful string quartets. This release contrasts Shostakovich’s first two string quartets with the seventh – composed in memory of his late wife Nina. In composing his quartets prior to No. 7, Shostakovich had scrupulously followed a predetermined sequence of keys: according to this, the work should have been in E flat major. However Shostakovich, significantly, chose to break this pattern by writing his new quartet in F sharp minor, the key associated with such anguished music as Peter’s remorse in Bach’s St John Passion, and – particularly close to Shostakovich’s heart – Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony.

The works in this collection attest to the high standard of music-making in Naples. The composers here recorded were at the forefront of the achievements of Neapolitan music in the first half of the 18th century, the golden age of music production in the southern Italian centre. And the Neapolitan style at this time was fashionable beyond the borders of Italy, as well. Among all the composers presented, only Mancini lived and worked almost all his life in Naples. The others spent their lives travelling or serving foreign courts. This programme exploits the felicitous pairing of the voice with flute, two instruments similarly tied to the expressivity of human breath. Throughout this programme a baroque transverse flute, or ‘traverso’, is used, either called for specifically or substituted for the recorder. When these pieces were written the two types of flute still existed alongside each other as equals, as they had done for centuries before the transverse variety began to dominate later in the 18th century. Use of the viola da gamba for the bass part also finds justification in Naples. While in Rome the instrument had almost completely disappeared by the first half of the 17th century, it endured in Naples and continued to be used. Several mid-18th-century viole da gamba, preserved to this day, in various sizes by luthiers from the Neapolitan Gaglian family attest to the much later persistence of this instrument in that area.

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Premiered in 1900 with huge success, Puccini’s “melodramma” Tosca is a political thriller with a heart-breaking love story. With his gripping opening scene, stage director Michael Sturminger sets the tone for a cinematic, richly detailed Tosca which is set in the Mafiosi world of modern day Rome and which is “the perfect thriller … reminiscent of Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’” (Kleine Zeitung), a “film noir” (FAZ). In this production soprano Anja Harteros is “a phenomenal Tosca!” (Kurier), “unparalleled in the world” (Der Standard) and Aleksandrs Antonenko is “a Cavaradossi of superlatives” (Kieler Nachrichten). The Staatskapelle Dresden under Christian Thielemann „show again that he is not only a master of German repertoire but also strikes the right note in Italian repertoire.“ (Focus)

It’s no surprise that The King’s Singers have recorded a huge number of love songs on all kinds of albums over the last fifty years. Some of these were albums devoted to love songs like Chanson d’amour and Romance du soir. Other albums couldn’t help but include music about love, although their theme was actually different. This album, Love Songs, is a chance to revisit some of the ensemble’s favorite tracks that they’ve recorded over the last two decades, compiled from across their back catalogue with Signum Records. The tracks they’ve chosen have come from five different albums, released between 2008 and 2017. Rather than trying to take in any of the enormous number of classical love songs from the back catalogue, the group wanted to focus on some of the best folk songs, jazz standards, and pop songs that have featured in King’s Singers concerts throughout their history. This selection has been curated especially to celebrate the group’s favorite recent albums, and to show how rich and varied the tapestry of love songs we have today is.

REVIEWS:

[A] spirited, handsomely sung program of entries representing a number of genres. I enjoy the bass fiddle licks sung with such jazzy appeal in ‘I’ve Got the World On a String’ (Harold Arlen) and Jerome Kern’s ‘I Won’t Dance’. The softrock arpeggios in Paul Simon’s ‘April Come She Will’ and ‘Helplessly Hoping’ (Stephen Stills) are great fun, and I will happily make time for Simon Carrington’s radiant arrangement of ‘My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose’. For a union of the British choral tradition and the Doo-Wop style, look no further than this rendition of ‘At Last’.

A cappella groups singing in this style have proliferated like gangbusters on high school and college campuses. If a young musician you know is singing in one, why not get ahold of this and show them what the gold standard sounds like.

-- American Record Guide

On this new recording, Coro Victoria offers a portrait of Alonso Lobo (1555-1617) through a cross-section of his sacred output (his works in Spanish are all lost). The group also illustrates the variety of interpretative practices of the period. The concluding O quam suavis est Domine is sung by a single soprano while the vihuela accompaniment supplies the remaining five parts. Church choirs sang this music in the liturgy, but minstrels also played it during processions, and there was free traffic between sacred and secular contexts. Coro Victoria was founded by it's director, Ana Fern�ndez-Vega, to recover and preserve a native, historically informed tradition of singing Spanish polyphony from it's Renaissance-era high noon, exemplified not only by Victoria himself but also his contemporaries such as the Seville-born and bred Alonso Lobo (indeed, Victoria considered Lobo his equal). He is now best known for a haunting, six-voice setting of the Requiem, and his magnificent motet for the obsequies of King Philip II, Versa est in luctum shares the Requiem's tone of mourning and remembrance, established by a dense mesh of overlapping counterpoint. Coro Victoria also presents other sides to a composer whose style is far more various than is commonly assumed. As well as the beautifully handled techniques of canon and counterpoint in Marian motets such as Ave Maria and Ave Regina coelorum, distinguishing features of Lobo's style are his jagged melodic lines, a far cry from Palestrina's smooth curves, and his more animated conclusions, both vividly demonstrated by Vivo ego, dicit Dominus. There is also a complete, portmanteau setting of the Mass, drawn from his Missa O Rex gloriae, Missa Petre ego pro te rogavi and Missa Simile est regnum caelorum, with the Credo filled in by the separate Credo Romano, which is underpinned by a figured bass and continued to be popular long after his death. These polished performances should renew wider interest in Lobo's music.