Ricercar's recording of the complete cantatas of Matthias Weckman (RIC 216) is now followed by one of his chamber music. His sonatas for four instruments were intended for the concerts given by the Hamburg Collegium Musicum, the society where the most 'modern' music of the time was to be heard, and were inspired by the virtuoso works by Viennese and Venetian composers. The harpsichord pieces are very much in the style of his friend J.J. Froberger; they foreshadow the works of Bach's generation in that they allude just as much to the style of the French suite as to that of Italian contrapuntal works. The various German songs recorded here are an example of the works that Weckman supplied for the official occasions of Hamburg municipal life.

Having recorded the complete motets composed by the ancestors of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vox Luminis now tackles their complete spiritual concerts and sacred cantatas, in which the instruments – particularly the strings – play a highly important role. In the cantata for the Feast of St Michael the Archangel by Johann Christoph Bach, trumpets and drums are enlisted to evoke the battle of the archangels in heaven. To round off this programme, Vox Luminis presents the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden by Johann Sebastian Bach, in its original version dating from his Arnstadt period, containing copious elements linking it to the music of his forebears. Vox Luminis is a Belgian early music ensemble created in 2004 by its artistic director Lionel Meunier. Today, the ensemble performs over 60 concerts a year, appearing on stages in Belgium, across Europe and around the world. The size and composition of the group depends on the repertoire being performed but the core of soloists, mostly from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, is joined by a continuo and additional (orchestral) instrument performers. Its repertoire is essentially Italian, English and German and spans from the 16th to the 18th century.

The present recording attempts to provide musical illustrations of elements from Ganassi's treatise on ornamentation Fontegara, published in Venice in 1535. This work was intended for his wealthy aristocratic pupils, and a priori it does not reflect only his personal practice. This versatile musician's professional career consisted essentially in directing and playing the bombarde with his ensemble in the service of a number of doges and scuole. He also performed in the ridotti, the circles in which humanists and cultured nobles met. It is this refined art that William Dongois and his musicians propose to revive here, drawing on a very rich repertory of dances, songs and madrigals. An ensemble that can vary from two to ten players according to the works being performed, the Concert Brise is made up of musicians who share a common approach to music and to it's connection to historical sources. These links form one of the two reference points of the ensemble's interpretations, the other being the use of techniques of improvisation that have been taken from treatises of the period and also from jazz and from folk music. The musicians of the Concert Brise hope to communicate the pleasure that they experience in playing this music to their audiences, whilst at the same time they take the risk of introducing improvisation when it is required. At such a moment they must let themselves be guided by inspiration and, if necessary, allow a strict observation of the score to fade somewhat into the background.

Born around 1380 in the Duchy of Limburg, possibly in the little town of the same name, Johannes de Limburgia was active for a long time in Li�ge, then in Italy. We have evidence of his presence in Vicenza between 1431 and 1436, and several of his works refer explicitly to Vicenza, as well as to Venice and Padua, demonstrating a strong connection with northern Italy, where his music was compiled. His output - more than 45 works - is contained in three large manuscripts from the first half of the fifteenth century, alongside music by other composers from north of the Alps, such as Johannes Ciconia and Guillaume Dufay. Though only sacred music by Limburgia has survived, it is richly varied, reflecting both the consistency of the Franco-Flemish style and the composer's own inventive taste for harmonic and melodic experimentation. The works here are explored by Le miroir de musique, led by Baptiste Romain.

An intoxicating blend of voices makes the Stabat mater a profound experience

"Sheer joy in music-making is as evident here as the sense of piety required by what are, after all, holy works. Yet it is difficult to begrudge Vox Luminis some feeling of joy at the astonishing sounds they are able to produce. The spirit of devotion is very much alive here too, in an album that pays equal attention to the holy and to the heady." -- Gramophone [4/2008]

Classical Music

Le Miroir De Musique is an ensemble specialized in the music of the late middle ages and Renaissance, from the golden age of the troubadours to the humanist movements of the 16th century. The ensemble is based in Basel (CH) and brings together the most prolific of early music performers, many of whom are graduates of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The image of a "Mirror of Music" is borrowed from Jacques de Li�ge's treatise (Speculum Musicae), and reflects our goal of painting a vivid picture of medieval and Renaissance music, in a spirit of fidelity to the original sources. This project was first conceived for the Festtage Alter Musik in Basel in 2013, at the suggestion of Peter Reidemeister. The program was developed in close collaboration between the five musicians and the musicologist Martin Kirnbauer.

Includes work(s) by Johann Pachelbel. Ensembles: Namur Chamber Choir, Les Agrémens. Conductor: Jean Tubéry.

This recording presents two Austrian requiems of totally different character. Johann Joseph Fux wrote his Requiem in 1720 for the funeral of Eleonora von Neuburg, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. Composed by a musician reputed for his theoretical skill, it impresses with the quality of the polyphonic writing combined with a very rich instrumental fabric comprising cornetts, trombones and bassoon in addition to violins, instruments also benefiting from concertante interventions. This requiem was played on numerous occasions for official ceremonies, including again for the funeral of Karl VI in 1740. On the other hand, Johann Caspar Kerll's version is presented in a much more intimist way. As he himself stated in the preface to the edition, this requiem was written "for my soul's peace". It is scored for an ensemble of five voices backed up by a quartet of viols. In a more archaic style, its intense emotion is doubtless influenced by the music of his Roman master, Giacomo Carissimi.

AGRICOLA Missa In myne Zyn. In minen sin. Sy j’aime mon amy. Pater meus agricola est. Regina caeli. ANON Bien soiez venu. In mynen zin • Dirk Snellings, dir; Capilla Flamenca • RICERCAR RIC 306 (59:50 Text and Translation)


Alexander Agricola (1456?–1506) is characterized in the notes to this disc as a mannerist. It is curious to see a late-15th-century composer receiving the same categorization as contemporaries of Ciconia at the end of the 14th century and contemporaries of Gesualdo at the end of the 16th century. This end-of-century phenomenon hardly occurred during the Gay 90s (Mahler the Mannerist?). On an earlier disc ( Fanfare 23: 1), Paul van Nevel referred in the same vein to the “secret labyrinth” of the composer’s music. His disc assembled a Mass made up of single movements of five of Agricola’s settings, with the Agnus Dei taken from the Mass heard here. (He called it a “Missa Guazzabuglio,” which I would have recognized as “mishmash” if I had looked it up.)


This new version is quite a contrast to its first complete recording under János Bali, who on two CDs gave us the composer’s four Masses on secular cantus firmi (29:1 for the later one). Both directors use adult male voices (van Nevel put two women on the top line), but Bali had an ensemble of 13 voices, while Dirk Snellings uses one voice to a part. Instead of presenting the Mass straight through, Snellings tries to put it into some kind of context, though not a liturgical one. The preliminary tracks include the Dutch tune and the composer’s polyphonic elaboration of it, while two tracks characterized as Vespers include an instrumental piece and a Regina caeli . The Mass is interleaved with Agricola’s instrumental versions of songs by Binchois, Ockeghem, and Frye. This arrangement offers more variety than sense.


This is rightly called the most extended of Agricola’s Masses, for at nearly 40 minutes without a Kyrie (assumed to have been written but lost) it ranks with Obrecht’s Missa Maria zart in length. The vocal ensemble contrasts with Bali’s small choir, but this does not put Bali at a disadvantage. If you have the latter already, you may decide that it is sufficient. Still, Snellings does consistent good work and this disc is a credit to him and his singers.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Classical Music

Classical Music

Early Music


EL LLIBRE VERMELL • Christophe Deslignes, dir; Millenarium; Namur CCh; Psallentes; Les Pastoureux • RICERCAR 260 (79:30 Text and Translation)


“The Red Book,” as it is known from its 19th-century binding, is the only volume that survived when Montserrat abbey was burnt by Napoleon’s troops in 1811, but only because its borrower had not returned it (and his heirs only sold it back to its rightful owners in 1885). It includes a unique collection of 10 songs, intended to be sung and danced by pilgrims who came to venerate the reputedly miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin and child that had been displayed there since the late 12th century. The collection has been recorded at least 21 times, in addition to single songs done many times over. The first piece is a chant antiphon (sung in canon) in unique Catalan chant notation, but the rest are Ars Nova in style. Two of them are brief canons, while the remaining seven (two set to vernacular texts) are strophic in structure. The first two recordings under Thomas Binkley and Jose Luis Ochoa de Olza (both later on CD) included generally one strophe of each song; since then, most songs have been recorded complete except Mariam matrem virginem , for which all five strophes are included only in this and two other known recordings (four of the complete sets have not been checked). Jordi Savall (13:3) was the first nearly complete recording, lacking only two strophes of Mariam matrem virginem . Next was Berry Hayward, who performed the two vernacular pieces only instrumentally. Philip Pickett (16:4) dragged everything out to 70 minutes without fillers or the two missing verses of the same hymn. Brigitte Lesne (18:6) offered the best version since Savall, matching his panoply of performing forces including children. Ensemble Micrologus on Discant 1008 was recorded uniquely at the abbey of Montserrat and furnished the first complete version of the same hymn. Carlos Magraner on Licanus 0201 also offered that hymn complete.


Now Christophe Deslignes, like the last two, brings together a variety of performers to elicit the ambiance of a gathering of pilgrims celebrating their devotion. There are 20 tracks here, the other 10 tracks offering an opening procession of pilgrims, five Gregorian chants, and four instrumental pieces, all in the spirit of the book. Unlike some recorded sets that preserve the order of the book, this one does not, though Ad mortem festinamus , the danse macabre that breaks the pattern of Marian devotion dominating the book, always comes last. The two brief canons, one after the other in the book, have been recorded a couple of times as a single canon (by Joel Cohen and Brigitte Lesne) or at least in sequence, but here they are separated. Like several other successful versions, this ensemble of men, women, and children accompanied by instruments elicits the ambiance of a disparate group of pilgrims spending the night in the open space before the abbey church, celebrating in folk style the devotion that brought them together. To appreciate their situation, it helps to picture the monastery perched on the side of a mountain more than halfway up to the 4,000-foot peak. Access is roundabout even now and must always have been difficult at best. Yet it has always drawn hordes of pilgrims and visitors. (Stunning photos can be found easily by a Web search.)


Deslignes’s version ranks with the best. The Discant and Licanus discs mentioned above are also fine, though children’s voices would have added something more. Among older versions, Savall and Lesne are still fine. A good and inexpensive resource for further understanding is the facsimile, edition, and commentary by Maricarmen Gómez i Muntané, El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat , which includes an English summary in the Catalan edition of 2000 (the Spanish edition of 1990 had no English summary). Don’t pass up Deslignes’s rousing presentation.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Carmina Burana: Officium lusorum

Florence Malgoire’s ensemble Les Dominos pays tribute to Jean-Philippe Rameau in the 250th year since his death with very rarely played repertoire. + These Concerts de Monsieur Rameau are, in fact, transcriptions in six parts of the Pièces de Clavecin en Concert that Rameau had conceived at the outset from his harpsichord pieces with accompaniment by violin or flute and bass viol. + The original adaptations by M. Decroix (1768) are quite enigmatic, and Les Dominos’ reading of it combines the strings with two emblematic instruments of Rameau’s orchestra: flutes and bassoon.

Classical Music

We know now that Purcell's three Funeral Sentences were not written for the funeral of Queen Mary in 1695. Following the tradition of the English court, it was pieces by Thomas Morley, originally written for the funeral of Elizabeth I, that were sung there. Purcell's only contribution to the ceremony was the composition of two pieces for slide trumpets (March and Canzona), and the anthem in the archaic style Thou knowest, Lord. During the funeral procession to Westminster Abbey, a band of oboes played two marches written by John Paisible and Thomas Tollet. This recording assembles the music composed for the funeral of Queen Mary and that used at the funeral of Elizabeth I in 1603. The programme is completed by Purcell's sublime a cappella anthems and a moving anthem by Weelkes on the death of Thomas Morley. After the success of the recording of Schütz's Musicalische Exequien, voted Record of the Year by Gramophone magazine, this disc will be one of the major events of spring 2013.

Leipzig, 1726. Johann Sebastian Bach had been Cantor at the Thomaskirche for three years, and in February of that year he interrupted his regular production of cantatas to perform eighteen cantatas by his cousin Johann Ludwig Bach in the city's main churches. Johann Ludwig was Kapellmeister at the court of Meiningen at that time. These works have survived solely thanks to the copies that Johann Sebastian made of them, and thus testify to the high esteem in which he held his cousin's compositions. Capella Sollertia now presents the first-ever recording of these works.

The acclaimed period ensemble L'Acheron conducted by viola de gambist Francois Joubert-Caillet presents a collection of works from Samuel Scheidt's late Renaissance masterpiece 'Ludi Music'. Scheidt, considered one of the most prolific composer of the late Renaissance era lived at a time of transition with the polyphony of the Renaissance era already filled with intimations of the virtuosity and contrapuntal techniques of the looming Baroque era. L'Acheron's performance presents the palpable feeling of standing on thresholds throughout this fine recording.

The first notes of the descending chromatic theme break the silence and it seems as if time has stopped. The listener is drawn into the world of John Dowland, the greatest lutenist of all, in a journey through multiple shades of melancholy and lucent hope. Never before had the lute sounded as expressive and colorful as in these masterful Fancies, as dynamic as in these sparkling dances: Renaissance lute music here reached its summit. Bor Zuljan explores these qualities in his debut solo recording, breathing new life into Dowland's masterpieces. Bor Zuljan (1987) is active in different musical genres and projects and searches for a synthesis of contemporary and early music, different world music traditions, jazz and improvisation. He plays guitars, different kinds of lutes, vihuela, oud, tar and other early and traditional plucked-strings instruments. The search for the connection between sound, image and word led him to collaborate in different interdisciplinary projects. He is performing regularly as soloist and with ensembles, such as Le Concert Brisé, Geneva Camerata, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Contrechamps, Vortex, in duo with Dusan Bogdanovic, as well as with his ensemble La Lyra. His projects have been presented in festivals such as the Laus Polyphoniae in Antwerpen, Oude Muziek in Utrecht, Mousiké in Bari, Festival Radovljica in Slovenia and many others. He also performed in China, Algeria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark and in Croatia.

“Sigismondo d’India has a “twin”, a “mirror” in music: Claudio Monteverdi. Both men developed, in parallel, a style that radically changed the history of music. A style inherited from composers such as Luca Marenzio and Carlo Gesualdo, but which d’India and Monteverdi were to transform through the creation of new techniques.

The flute occupies an important place amongst all the instruments celebrated by Vivaldi, il prete rosso, in his concerti. All evidence points to the instrument concerned being the recorder, given that it was still extremely popular in Italy at that time. The single publication of concerti that Vivaldi did not compose for the violin (opus X) was marked by him as being for the flute, as were the Concerti da Camera, in which the instrument rivals the violin, oboe and bassoon in virtuosity. Performing the recorder parts on this new release is Frederic de Roos. Frédéric de Roos is the recorder professor at the Royal Conservatorium of Brussels of which he has also been the director since 2003. After obtaining a university degree in musicology, he focused his studies on the recorder repertoire of the 18th century. He regularly presents conferences and seminars on the language of the baroque and gives courses and master classes both in Belgium and abroad.

Classical Music

This recording, an exploration of sacred and secular music in the New World during the first years of the Baroque period, was made at the conclusion of a successful concert tour that formed part of the Festival de Wallonie 2012. Hanacpachap, recorded here, was the first sacred work in a native language to be published in Latin America.

The emotion-laden text of the Stabat mater has been an inspiration to many composers from the Renaissance onwards and has been set to music in every possible style. Luigi Boccherini, a virtuoso cellist and unquestioned master of chamber music, composed his own setting with a great respect for the text’s character. The quintet that accompanies the solo soprano has the same qualities of balance and homogeneity common to the best chamber works of the end of the Classical period, whilst the blend between voices and instruments is perfect. Boccherini’s profound respect for the text enables him to identify the exact musical character of each and every verse. Born in Belgium, Sophie Karthäuser completed her studies with Noelle Barker at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is one of the world’s finest interpreters of Mozart and has been called a born “Mozartian,” and brings that same clarity of interpretation and flair to the work presented on this release.