Heinrich Laufenberg lived and worked between c. 1390 and 1460 in the Swiss canton of Argovia, southern Germany and Alsace. + He authored a vast body of works, comprising spiritual hymns, didactic epics and religious prose. + This program offers the joy of hearing several of his songs that had remained silent since the 15th c. + Between these lyrical and narrative songs are inserted instrumental pieces from the period. + Ensemble Dragma’s flexible configuration allows them to bring the repertoire of the high and late Middle Ages to life, in all its color and variety, for contemporary audiences.

Andreas Pevernage (1542/3–1591) is best remembered today as the choirmaster of Antwerp Cathedral and as the composer of several picture motets that are now classified as masterpieces of Flemish culture. Whilst Pevernage spent his entire professional career in Flanders, which may well have contributed to his music being less well known today, he was nonetheless considered as the equal of Orlandus Lassus, Clemens non Papa and Giaches de Wert during his lifetime: the quality of his music is in no wise inferior to the works of his more famous contemporaries. Pevernage adopted the innovations of the Italian madrigal and also breathed new life into the chansons of the Low Countries. This selection of works, mostly for five parts, is an invitation to discover his stylistic and creative diversity.

Today there are different types of the instrument known in German-speaking countries as the Hackbrett, mainly associated with local traditional music, such as the cimbalom in Eastern Europe, the santūr in Persia, etc. The history of European music has also known moments when this type of instrument was appreciated in art music, thanks especially to its sonority, which predestined it for the so-called ‘sensitive’ (empfindsam) style. This recording is devoted to the salterio, the Italian form of the instrument, for which a considerable number of works were composed in the eighteenth century. Margit Übellacker and Jürgen Banholzer present a selection of world premiere recordings of sonatas for salterio and basso continuo. These reflect the galant style of north Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Medieval interest in animals and mythical creatures was not limited to the visual arts and literature. At the same time that bestiaries – manuscripts depicting animals and mythical creatures – were being compiled, composers were producing innumerable pieces that describe these same beasts from a musical point of view. “Song of Beasts” combines medieval iconography with texts and music, immersing a modern audience in this fascinating world of verbal, visual and aural imagery. Ensemble Dragma paints a multifaceted, moving and in depth portrait of the bestiaries, giving a glimpse of a long lost medieval mindset. Various mythical and real animals are introduced, including the panther, the viper, the phoenix and the basilisk. These pieces by both renowned and less well-known composers are musical jewels, combining artful poetry with engaging melodies.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Johann Sebastian Bach never intended to compose flute sonatas or partitas in sets of 6 or 12, as was customary at the time (and as he himself did for violin, cello and harpsichord). Bach's flute sonatas evolved over a roughly 30-year period between c.1717-1747 as he encountered the different types of flute in fashion at the time, and met several greatly skilled flautists. The question of which flautist and flute makers Bach may have known played a decisive role in choosing the program on this recording. In preparation, Frank Theuns compared and assessed the playing qualities of various early eighteenth-century flute types. Eventually, he decided on a copy of a flute made by Pierre Gabriel Buffardin. The balanced, brilliant, Italianate sound of this instrument was a perfect match for the demands of this repertoire. As well as being an unequalled flautist and an accomplished composer, Buffardin was also a renowned flute maker whom Bach may have met in Dresden in 1717.

According to current knowledge, the St. Aegidius organ in Berne has the world's only surviving pipes by the Brabant organ builder Reinhard Lampeler van Mill (1596); it also possesses a significant amount of historical substance from Harmen Kr�ger (1643) and Christian Vater (1714). This organ is an important historical document of North German organ building prior to Arp Schnitger-an instrument full of power, intensity, tone color, and "sweet sharpness." The aim of this recording is not to invent a new instrument for Buxtehude's organ works, but rather to show how the sound of the late 16th and early 17th century Berne organ influences our hearing of Buxtehude's music-his instrument in L�beck also had registers that dated back to this period. The use of pure meantone temperament, registrations based on 16th and 17th century sources, as well as ornamentation and diminutions, also play an essential role here. The meantone temperament also necessitated the transposition of some pieces, a practice also practice also to be found in works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The musical culture that Josephine de Beauharnais (1763-1814), Empress of the French and Napoleon Bonaparte's wife, developed with her family and at court kept pace with fashion and even shaped the French musical taste of the period. Josephine organised weekly concerts at the Chateau de Malmaison, her preferred residence, that featured many of the most famous musicians in Paris and Europe. Informal musical soirees were also held on an almost daily basis. This recording presents excerpts from operas of the period transcribed for chamber performance, in which the most passionate emotions are expressed alongside nostalgic romances and alternate with instrumental works to recreate the spontaneity of a musical evening in Josephine's salon. This original project offers music lovers an immersion in a musical universe that is largely unknown to audiences today.

The Messa a quattro voci con Violoncelli, Fagotti, Basso, ed Organo is an example of a particular type of sacred music that emerged at the end of the 18th century at the Portuguese court, in which the bass instruments imitate a classical orchestral texture. The resulting instrumental ensemble - two cellos and two bassoons with solo lines, with the bass line assigned to double bass and organ - was to remain standard until the first quarter of the 19th century. A body of some thirty works, including masses, settings of psalms. The Te Deum, Vespers, and responsories is proof enough of the importance of this repertoire in Portuguese musical life in this period; there was nothing equivalent to this instrumentation in other European lands at that time. This, the first recording of a work from this uniquely Portuguese repertoire with obbligato cellos and bassoons, is also the first recording of a work by Antonio de Padua Puzzi.

The 'Juvenilia' programme centres around the early works of Johann Sebastian Bach. While much attention is given to his later works, his youthful keyboard compositions remain vastly underappreciated, being seldom performed and even more seldom recorded. Despite this, they exhibit a richness of inventiveness, youthful spirit and experimentation, while simultaneously foreshadowing the compositional hallmarks of his mature style. This album contains early compositions by Bach as well as pieces by Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Adam Reincken and Georg B�hm, who had a significant impact on Bach's artistic development and musical identity. The programme is rounded off by two anonymous and never-before-recorded pieces from the Andreas Bach Buch.

Johann Sebastian Bach took the opportunity to enhance the previously mediocre inventory of string instruments in Leipzig's two main churches in 1729 by purchasing four violins, two violas and two cellos from the workshop of Johann Christian Hoffmann (Leipzig 1683-1750). Three of these eight instruments, two violins and a viola, are still owned by the Thomaskirche. They could only be admired in a display case for decades, but here they can be heard in a recording for the first time. The Art of Fugue is framed by Bach's first and last Leipzig chorale arrangements, recorded on the Hildebrandt organ in Stormthal near Leipzig, which Bach had examined and inaugurated. Hearing these emblematic works on instruments that the Cantor himself had played is an extraordinary experience that provides direct historical testimony to the sound world of Johann Sebastian Bach.

The term violoncello was particularly fluid in the early 18th century: it referred to a wide range of bowed stringed instruments of different sizes and shapes, generally with four or five strings; some of these instruments were held between the knees and others were supported by the arm. So when Bach's wife, Anna Magdalena, wrote Suites � Violoncello Solo senza Basso (Suites for Solo Cello without Bass) on the title page of her manuscript copy, we cannot be entirely sure what type of instrument she was referring to. It is said that Bach himself played both the violin and the viola exceptionally well, and it is quite possible that he originally composed the suites for his own use and played them on a violoncello piccolo held on the arm, using viola fingerings. It is, however, also possible that he composed these works for other virtuosi known to him, these including Gregor Christoph Eylenstein, concertmaster of the Weimar court orchestra, and the Leipzig violinist Carl Gotthelf Gerlach. While being excellent violinists, they were also known as experts on the cello and viola d'amore. These considerations-and the observation that certain suites seem particularly well suited to specific instruments-inspired Ronan Kernoa to record the six suites on six different instruments.

Rarely recorded on disc, Johann Sebastian Bach's concertos for three and four harpsichords illustrate the art of writing for keyboard and strings of which the composer was a pioneer. These emblematic works, characterised by a balance between strong themes and abundant internal energy, are performed by virtuoso harpsichordists from the new generation of Baroque musicians: Violaine Cochard, Olivier Fortin, Pierre Gallon, Jean-Luc Ho and, for the first time, the young Croatian harpsichordist Davor Krkljus, accompanied by the strings of Le Caravanserail under the direction of Bertrand Cuiller on harpsichord. The album also includes a previously unreleased transcription for four harpsichords of the famous Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, by Bertrand Cuiller.

I dream of forever being able to build programmes and recordings, as I do here, out of a pure desire to play. These mischievous, naive desires for play and musical pleasure are the only things that drive me. In this new album devoted to J.S. Bach, I explore a wide variety of works, each telling it's own story, which could be arranged in different ways or listened to separately. The aim of this new album, my first solo work devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach, is simple but so important to me: to delight the ears and, may I hope, the heart, with a few pieces that I place in the pantheon of the Kantor and that have been with me for a long time, recorded here on a magnificent harpsichord by Philippe Humeau. And a new adventure with Ramee - an invaluable label if there ever was one - is just beginning! Bertrand Cuiller

Charles V was certainly the most powerful and charismatic of the Renaissance rulers. Exhausted and worn down by the challenges of imperial rule, he abdicated towards the end of his life and led a secluded existence in the monastery of Cuacos de Yuste in Castile under the motto 'Ecce elongavi fugiens et mansi in solitudine' ('I fled and remained in solitude'). The Utopia Ensemble seeks out the man behind the monarch and examines the duality of power and greatness as well as solitude. Pierre de Manchicourt - court composer to Charles's son and director of the famous Capilla Flamenca - could well have written his Requiem for one of the countless commemorations of Charles V. It radiates serenity and splendour and is juxtaposed here with chansons that moved the heart beneath Charles's imperial armour.

The 18th century had a dynamic musical scene in which much experimentation went alongside respect for accepted traditions. A wide range of hybrid forms emerged in the wake of the French dance suite and the new Italian solo sonata: not only sonatas with divergent forms and suites in which French character titles suddenly gave way to Italian tempo indications, but also everything in between. Korneel Bernolet here presents an anthology of European 'compiled' sonatas in the form of or derived from suites, alongside contrasting compositions that sought the true sonata form. He plays the Joannes Daniel Dulcken magisterial 1747 single-keyboard harpsichord, whose ambassador and titular player he is.

If music be the food of love, play on we read in Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night. Play on - but what music should we play? No playwright in world literature has inspired more musical settings by important composers over the centuries than Shakespeare. It is clear that music's role in Shakespeare's plays can hardly be overestimated. His stage directions call not only for song but also for instrumental sennets and tuckets - sonatas and toccatas. In this recording, Hannah Morrison, Marnix de Cat and the Hathor Consort bring to life a wealth of sensual Renaissance sounds from the time of Elizabeth I in pieces that could well have been performed at the Globe Theatre.

Three instruments, three emblematic works, and three excellent soloists! With Sophie Gent on violin, Frank Theuns on traverso and Bertrand Cuiller on harpsichord, Les Muffatti offer a fresh interpretation of Bach's Triple Concerto, the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto and the Orchestral Suite in B minor. They provide a variety of orchestral textures, appropriate to the more soloistic style in the Brandenburg Concerto, and the alternating ripieno-tutti settings in the Triple Concerto and the Suite.

While the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto was composed during Bach's time in Köthen and can be regarded as the first piano concerto ever written, the other two works date from his later years in Leipzig. In these works, Bach exploits the full range of compositional possibilities he had acquired during his lifetime; the highly individual combination of contrapuntal artistry and heightened expressiveness already points to the works composed in the last years of his life.

Les Muffatti have been one of the leading artists on the Ramée label from its beginnings; this, their tenth album for Ramée, also marks the label’s 20th anniversary.

The fashionable literary salons of Paris were centres of experimentation in the refined art of conversation that expressed an idealised vision of love as well as a most poetic depiction of aristocratic society. The women who founded these salons, such as the Marquise de Rambouillet and Madeleine de Scudery, exerted a considerable influence on social culture and it's fashion for preciosite, creating a poetic style whose inevitably plaintive accents would swiftly lead lovers who frequented such salons down the winding paths of the pays de Tendre. "The true character of those who love is composed of tenderness and plaintiveness", according to Abbe Charles Cotin - and music was employed as a means of expressing every nuance of amorous feeling that many poets of the style galant took great pains to depict. The musicians who were most in vogue would then take their galant verses and set them to song in the form of airs serieux, a genre which dominated all secular French music for most of the reign of Louis XIV. This album, a world premiere recording, is devoted to the airs serieux of Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre, a scion of one of the most prestigious families of French musicians of the 17th century.

Surrounded by a certain air of mystery and revered as a relic, The Art of Fugue is roundly praised for its complex, mathematical nature. However, these works are also movingly lyrical, and deserve to be enjoyed for their pure beauty, just as one enjoys the rhythms and sounds in the words of a poem, regardless of form and sometimes even meaning. Following the last version of J.S. Bach's autograph manuscript, New Collegium champions in "Lemniscate" the reconciliation and celebration of all these aspects, bringing to the fore both the cerebral brilliance as well as the emotive intensity of this iconic masterpiece, allowing it to be both light and profound. The rich instrumentation of woodwinds, brass, strings and harpsichord allows for expressive characters to be exaggerated, hints at other musical styles, and paints diverse atmospheres, infusing fantasy and life into these twenty fugues and canons.

This double album accompanies the eponymous book by Anthony M. Cummings, Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London 2023). They are designed to enable readers and listeners to enter the sound world of late-medieval and early-modern Florence. Despite the enviable place Florence occupies in the historical imagination, its music-historical importance is not as well-understood as it should be. Yet if Florence was the city of Dante Alighieri, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Galileo Galilei, it was also the birthplace of the Renaissance madrigal, opera, and the piano.

Our goal in assembling this set of recordings, which survey the principal surviving genres of music in Florence in the half-millennium between c. 1250 and c. 1750, was to provide a “virtual” evocation of the extraordinary musical culture of golden-age Florence, one of unsurpassed importance. Through the integration of the contents of the book and the CDs, and leveraging text, image, musical notation, and sound, we offer our listeners the possibility of a fascinating metaphoric time travel.

The yamato word for mirror, kagami, can be read as “kami (divinity) surrounding ga (self)”: if you look in a mirror, what you see is your own self surrounded by divinity. Kaori Uemura has called her tale Kagami, because she believes that music reflects the inner depths of the self in the same way as a mirror. Mirrors were used in art as a reflection of what is, and as an allegory of truth and wisdom, a means of knowing yourself as you are. This recording is also a tribute to the Baroque composers who saw music not only as a mirror of divine creation, but equally as a means of expressing human emotions through musical figures which could produce specific affects.

The instrumentalist, composer, and publisher Tielman Susato (c. 1510/15 – after 1570) was one of the most illustrious figures in the musical life of Renaissance Antwerp. He founded the first music publishing house to use movable type in the Low Countries in 1543. Music printing had mainly been based in Italy, France, and Germany until Susato set up his press in Antwerp. He was one of the first to publish works by Orlando di Lasso, the most renowned composer of the late Renaissance. Susato was also an accomplished composer who wrote and published several books of masses and motets in the typical imitative polyphonic style of the time. He was well connected in the highest circles of the city and the country, often dedicating his publications to prominent citizens or rulers. The Utopia Ensemble here presents a florilegium of works composed and/or published by this dazzling figure of Renaissance vocal music.

Heinrich Andreas Contius, originally from Halle in Central Germany, was the leading organ builder in the Baltic lands during the second half of the 18th century; his work was particularly appreciated by J.S. Bach. None of his instruments has survived in its original state, but Joris Potvlieghe (Belgium) and Flentrop Orgelbouw (The Netherlands) began an exact reconstruction of Contius’ Liepaja organ to its 1779 state under the management of the Contius Foundation in 2012, using materials and techniques that Contius himself would have employed. The project is unique, as no other instrument by Contius has as yet been reconstructed so meticulously. The organ is characterized by a gentler and more elegant attack that is also somewhat rounder and milder than that of earlier instruments by Gottfried Silbermann and is therefore well suited to the refinements of the galant style. This is the first recording to use the replica of the Contius Liepaja organ in the Sint-Michiel Vredeskerk in Leuven; Bart Jacobs here presents works by composers directly linked to Johann Sebastian Bach as well as to organs built by Heinrich Andreas Contius.

Johann Sebastian Bach, the newly appointed Cantor of the Thomaskirche, undertook his first official journey from Leipzig to nearby Störmthal in 1723, where he and his Thomanerchor inaugurated the beautiful new organ built by Zacharias Hildebrandt, a pupil of Silbermann. Bach was thrilled by the instrument’s splendid timbres and tonal beauty. A particularly beautiful violin was made by the German luthier David Tecchler in Rome — 1400 km from Störmthal — during that same year. Both instruments have survived and have been excellently restored; now, three hundred years after their creation, they meet for the first time. Nadja Zwiener, leader of The English Concert and Johannes Lang, the current organist of the Thomaskirche here celebrate the 300th anniversary of these two instruments and Bach’s investiture in Leipzig with a florilegium of works by Bach himself, his contemporaries and his predecessors. A splendidly colourful musical firework!

Very little is known about the life of Anthoni van Noordt. Following in the tradition of Jan Piertszoon Sweelinck, he was organist at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam from 1664. After the death of Dirck Sweelinck in 1652, the van Noordt family became Amsterdam's most important musical family. The van Hagerbeer organ in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, a large 17th-century Dutch city organ with a wide variety of stops, is particularly well suited for the performance of van Noordt's music. The organ still has many of the characteristics of a traditional Renaissance organ, but the earlier preference for strongly contrasting timbres has given way to greater homogeneity, generally tending towards a somewhat darker sound.

Also new is the striving for solemnity and weight, expressed above all in the disposition of a 24' in the Hauptwerk and a Trompete 16' in the Pedal. The old variety of reed stops has disappeared, however, but there are still several higher stops such as Nasard 1½', Sifflet 1' and Tertiaan. Leon Berben offers us a colourful and lushly ornamented reading of van Noordt's 1659 Tabulatuurboeck van Psalmen en Fantasyen.