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.

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.

Very little is known about António Pereira da Costa (c. 1697–1770), though the exceptional quality of his only surviving compositions – 12 Concerti grossi – earns him pride of place. He held the post of Chapel Master of the Cathedral of Funchal, the highest musical position in the Portuguese island of Madeira. Pereira da Costa's Concerti are the only set of Concerti grossi of Portuguese provenance identified to date. They were largely inspired by Corelli’s, but frequently reveal an unmistakable “Iberian” flavour. These works embody the charm and freshness of a truly exquisite “tropical Baroque”. Ensemble Bonne Corde presents the first recording of these pieces, which are a milestone in Portuguese eighteenth century instrumental music.

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.

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.

‘It is simply a badge of historical injustice that oboists must wear.’ Such was the lament of Leon Goosens, echoing the commonly-held view that the nineteenth century was a time of crisis in the history of the oboe. Like a snowball effect, the idée reçue that the instrument fell into disuse because it was considered incompatible with the aesthetics of Romantic expression has been handed down across generations. This recording unearths a handful of evocative compositions from early nineteenth-century France to provide a reassessment of this commonly-held view. These works, all of which have never been recorded before, belong to a large corpus of neglected nineteenth-century chamber music for oboe and fortepiano, and bear witness to a lively, dynamic tradition of wind playing in France. Performed here on a ten-keyed French oboe by Guillaume Adler (Paris, c.1835) and a fortepiano by Erard (Paris, 1840), these sentimental and lyrical rarities beautifully highlight the unique timbres and playing characteristics of these rare original models.

The year 2021 marked the 500th anniversary of the birth of Philippe de Monte. This selection of madrigals, motets and chansons is a contribution to the restoration of his much-merited fame.

At the time of his death, in 1741, Joseph-Hector Fiocco's widow sold the manuscripts of the composer's works to Joannes Vanden Boom, Dean and Chapel Master of the Cathedral Saint Michel and Saint Gudule in Brussels, where the composer had held the post of zangmeester (choirmaster) until his untimely death. Among this collection is a complete set of nine Lamentations for Holy Week for the unusual instrumentation of solo voice, obbligato cello and basso continuo. Fiocco’s Lamentations are conceived in the most elevated Italian style of the early eighteenth century. They are masterful and can compete with the most beautiful such compositions, given their dramatic power and poignant emotion. In addition to the nine Lamentations known from the abovementioned manuscript, the present recording offers in world premiere two new settings and a differently instrumented version found in the archives of the Fonds St.-Jacob in Antwerp.

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.

Was John Coprario taking credit for someone else’s work when, under his own name, he made transcriptions of more than fifty Italian madrigals for a consort of viols? Such an accusation would be based on false premises, as anything resembling copyright was unknown at the beginning of the seventeenth century and for long afterwards; the use of musical material by someone else was rather considered as a respectful examination of ideas that were so promising that one wanted to think them through further. When transcribing these Italian madrigals, Coprario was not only extending an established tradition but also transcending it. He did not simply omit the text in his madrigal fantasias as had been customary in the 16th century, but also took the polyphonic setting even further, enriching it with instrumental possibilities that voices alone could not match. He also rearranged certain parts so that the original vocal work is not always immediately recognizable. Coprario, besides being one of the first to give ensemble music an instrumental identity, was no musical parrot, but an ingenious parodist.

Classical Music

Includes work(s) for recorder by Robert Valentine. Ensemble: Mediolanum Ensemble. Soloist: Susanne Ambos.

TOUCHEMOULIN Concertos: for Violin; for Harpsichord; for Flute. Symphonies: in G, op. 1/2; in F, op. 1/5 • Daniel Sepec (vn); Alexis Kossenko (fl); Patrick Ayrton (hpsd); Les Inventions (period instruments) • RAMÉE RAM 0807 (68:34)


Our fixation on genius can obscure many whose gifts, though manifold, did not measure up to those held by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and the like. Among those was a man by the name of Joseph Touchemoulin (1727–1801). Some of the critical information regarding Touchemoulin is missing, e.g., regarding his early musical training and what or who was responsible for his move to Germany. But snapshots of the life and career of this older contemporary of Haydn are provided by documents in places as diverse as the University of California at Berkeley and the Benedictine convent of Sarnen in Switzerland.


We find interesting personal correspondence with his family in France and we uncover fascinating tidbits as well, to wit: While Touchemoulin was employed at the court of Thurn und Taxis he was acquainted with and on occasion worked with Emanuel Schikaneder, the director of the city theater. It was he who would later create the role of Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte . We also learn that a Johann Friedrich Peter, a Moravian immigrating to North Carolina, took with him—among other things—a symphony of Touchemoulin as well as music of Mozart and Haydn.


Composers such as Touchemoulin acquired their skills through instruction, hard work, and self-discipline. His apprenticeship, if you will, was in Padua where he was taken under the wing of the great violinist Giuseppe Tartini. In spite of privation Touchemoulin remained loyal to his art, toiling assiduously, and rendering inexorable service to those who favored him with their patronage. Edison’s aphorism about the disproportionate percentages of perspiration and inspiration apparently paid off for Touchemoulin, as a number of his symphonies were performed to great acclaim at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1754, and they were published a few years later by Huberty with a dedication to Madame Cousineau. The symphonies are lightly scored, calling for strings with a pair of horns ad libitum . As for the concertos, those for violin and harpsichord include horns (the latter adds a pair of flutes as well), and the flute concerto employs strings only.


One doesn’t have to listen to this music for any length of time to determine that Touchemoulin was no genius, but he did succeed in composing charming and well-crafted music that speaks directly to the listener. There is not as much as a scintilla of pretense, nor is there any sophistry. The music hints at the younger members of the Bach family, with the galant and Empfindsamkeit almost constantly on display. The flute concerto was previously available on vinyl in a recording by Maxence Larrieu, but as far as the other works are concerned, they are world premieres.


Les Inventions is another of those small period-instrument bands with a string section that numbers 5-4-3-2-1 plus the requisite winds when and where appropriate. Its playing is crisp and cleanly articulated with excellent intonation, sprightly tempos, tight ensemble, and an aural spectrum that is quite good as well.


If you’re looking for another Mozart, then pass this one by. But if you’re looking for something different, interesting, and occasionally stimulating, then I suggest this Ramée release, as on those points it certainly won’t disappoint.


FANFARE: Michael Carter

The Lion’s Ear is a tribute to Leo X, who was called a Musician among Popes. The music on this album is music that would have been heard in Leo’s presence and in the courts he attended, including works by the Pope himself, Henricus Isaac, Francesco Canova da Milano, and others. La Morra, under the artistic direction of Corina Marti and Michal Gondko, was founded in 2000 and has performed at some of the most esteemed Early Music events across the globe.