Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The Habsburg Imperial Court was a melting pot of many different cultures in which the zest for living of southerners, the Slav melancholy, French formalism, Spanish courtliness and the original German-speaking Alpine cultural region intermingled. Together with his Ars Antiqua Austria ensemble, Gunar Letzbor occupied himself over a ten year period to produce this 10CD "Klang der Kulturen" box, a musical tour of the individual countries that formed the roots of and influences on the music of baroque Vienna, documenting them in live recordings, with each CD representing one country.

Gunar Letzbor, the St. Florian Boys' Choir and Ars Antiqua Austria here present Georg Muffat’s splendid Missa in Labore Requies. Muffat (1653-1704) was a consciously and intentionally heterogeneous composer, melding characteristics of German, French and Italian music into his own in a most individual manner. For the recording, the Gurk Cathedral proved to be an ideal location, allowing the spatial effects of the five choirs to be impressively reproduced. The two vocal choirs can be heard to the right and left of the imaginary middle axis, as are the string and wind choirs, whilst the trumpet choir sounds forth majestically from an elevated center position. In this way, one can comprehend why this monumental work represents the pinnacle of the genre – perhaps comparable only to H. I. F. Biber's Missa Salisburgensis.

The vocal ensemble Profeti della Quinta was founded in the Galilee region of Israel by the bass singer and harpsichordist Elam Rotem, and is based in Basel, Switzerland, where it's members undertook further studies of early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The ensemble focuses on the vocal repertoire of the 16th and early 17th centuries. From it's core of five male singers, the ensemble collaborates regularly with instrumentalists and additional singers. Profei della Quinta has recorded albums with music by the Jewish-Italian composer Salomone Rossi, Orlando di Lasso, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, and two works composed by Elam Rotem. The Madrigal was the most prominent genre of secular vocal music in the Renaissance and early Baroque. The program of the present release tells the story of the Italian Madrigal. It follows it's evolution from the highly expressive polyphony of Cipriano de Rore, to the revolutionary madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi that shaped the Baroque era.

The young Czech soprano Hana Bla��k�va is one of the most exciting voices in the baroque scene today. Conductors such as Herreweghe, Suzuki and Luks frequently invite her to record and perform, and she regularly appears at renowned festivals. For her debut as a solo artist, she selected German cantatas and sacred concertos from the latter half of the 17th c., works characterized by alternations between freely rhapsodic monodies and sections of great contrapuntal, polyphonic density typical of their time, exhibiting virtuoso coloratura, declamation and heartfelt courtly love for Jesus.

Classical Music

After receiving degrees from both the Mozarteum University Salzburg and the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin, Sergey Malov went on to win major competitions on two instruments: the violin (Heifetz 2008, 2010, 2001) and the viola (Tokyo 2010). His interest in historically informed performance practices led him to study the Baroque violin and more recently the violoncello da spalla. Today he successfully combines all these instruments in recitals, concerts, and recordings. Malov has already collaborated as a soloist with known orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, and the Akademie fur alte Musik Berlin. 13 Strings is his new exciting project. For the very first time, Sergey Malov brings Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne in D Minor together with György Ligeti's atonal Chaconne chromatique, two pieces that could hardly be more different upon first hearing them; while playing them, he discovers the breathtaking connection between the solo pieces, which he play son three instruments: a Baroque violin, a modern viola and a five-stringed ''violoncello da spalla''.

The cornerstone of this anthology is the renowned Silvius Leopold Weiss who exerted an influence on entire generations of lutenists with his outstanding compositions. A major regional focus here is Bayreuth, the cultural center so important for the lute, as well as the Saxon-Silesian surroundings around Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig. The collection also includes compositions originating from the final generation of German lutenists during the second half of the 18th century. World renowned lutenists perform here on the baroque lute with superb historical performance practice. Artists include Jose Miguel Moreno, Konrad Junghanel, Robert Barto, Karl-Ernst Schroder, and Alberto Crugnola.

With The Royal Wind Music, we will make the music of the most famous composer of the Netherlands sound like it never sounded before. Our ensemble is often compared to a "walking organ". The idea of how the 'Sweelinck Organ' sounded in his own hands in the Old Church in Amsterdam stimulates our interpretation of his beautiful keyboard works. His vocal works are equally suitable for our much loved interpretations of vocal polyphony. Performed on our instruments built by Adriana Breukink, Bob Marvin, Monika Musch and Adrian Brown we can beautifully imitate the timbre of a choir. This new programme reflects the breadth of Sweelinck's diverse oeuvre. But not only will we introduce some of our most favourite keyboard and vocal works of the master: contemporary reflections on Sweelinck's music will contextualise these early works and transport us to the Amsterdam of today. The 'fantasy' Dance for Orpheus of Amsterdam, originally composed for us by Aspasia Nasopoulou, is a contemporary comment and amalgamation of instrumental and vocal playing, scored for four recorders with one of the players (Irene Sorozabal) doubling as a soprano soloist to boot. An improvisatory soundscape called Chain Reaction is a musical interplay and modern take on the theme of Mein Junges Leben hat ein End, one of Sweelinck's most famous works.

1953 was the third year of 'New Bayreuth', with the pattern each year of two cycles of the Ring, several performances of Parsifal, and two other dramas, one in a new production, being established. In 1953 the major crises was the absence of Hans Knappertsbusch, who in the first two years had already come to be the backbone of the musical side. So, rather late in the day, Wieland Wagner summoned to Bayreuth two conductors of the generation after Kna: Clemens Krauss to conduct Parsifal and the second cycle of the Ring, and Joseph Keilberth to conduct the first Ring cycle and the new production of Lohengrin. This was the first year in which Hans Hotter sang all three Wotans, and he is in stupendous form the whole way through. For the first time at Bayreuth Martha Modl sings Brunnhilde, and she too is at her finest, that unmistakeable voice full and warm. And this was also the first year that Wolfgang Windgassen sang Siegfried, a role he made his own for at least the next fifteen years. In 1953 he sings with a volume and energy which has him in the line of his predecessors rather than his successors. This cycle (and the later one under Clemens Krauss) established the major figures for the next five years, Hotter always as Wotan, Varnay and Modl more or less alternating as Brunnhilde, and Windgassen, with one exception, Siegfried, similarly Gustav Neidlinger as Alberich. No more satisfactory Ring cast has been assembled since, indeed none that can touch it, and this release is a fitting tribute to it's lasting greatness.

Farinelli's Violin, the new CD by baroque violinist Jorge Jimenez, is dedicated to the music written for the great Farinelli, the most famous castrato of all time - the Freddy Mercury, the Lady Gaga of the 18th century...! With this programme, Jorges Jimenez creates a sound fiction in which Farinelli's most famous arias are freed from their words and brought back to their essence: the music.

Classical Music