This unique collaboration of some of early music's most esteemed artists performing with period instruments and featuring the beautiful young Brazilian countertenor, José Lemos, truly showcases the exquisite melodies and exciting dance pieces that define the Sephardic culture of early Spain.

REVIEWS:

This is something of a concept album. It’s also a programme that has been toured and performed in concert many times and reaches fruition as a disc. It takes Elizabethan and Jacobean lute music and marries it to the poetry and theatre of the time. Sometimes a single track is given over to verse or a short scene from a play, spoken by Robert Aubry Davis; but also we hear a speech or lyric spoken above, as it were, lute accompaniment. This sometimes makes things difficult to judge artistically vis a vis Ronn McFarlane’s lute playing, but it’s a disc to be measured against a rather wider canvass than usual, a multi-disciplinary words and music presentation.

Most of the music is by Dowland, but there is one piece by Campion, another by Byrd and others by our old pal, Anonymous. The theatrical performances derive from Shakespeare - Henry VIII, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona - as well as Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. There are poems by Wyatt, with which we begin and end, Robert Herrick and Samuel Daniel. Thomas D’Urfey’s wickedly naughty The Wanton Trick is here too.

As an example of a theatrical presentation it works well. Whether it has longevity on disc is a moot point, because some of the extracts are very brief, and also because the lute, played behind the voice, is demonstrably there for evocative effect. Ronn McFarlane has a number of discs to his name of lute music and is indeed a fine player. There are times when he inclined to the brusque and overly metrical - one thinks of Mrs Winter’s Jump for example; the woman in question must have been quite a motoric figure if his playing is anything to go by.

Next we have the spoken element. The method in the Wyatt ‘title track’, and others, is this. Davis speaks the first stanza, and then McFarlane joins in behind him. Note though that they were separately recorded.

The texts are printed in full, and the booklet has been nicely designed and amusingly written (by Davis). Indeed the disc is cleverly programmed.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

At the season of the winter solstice, light diminishes in our world. To counteract the onslaught of the darkness, traditional religions have created festivals to hold fast to a small steady flicker of illumination. Essential Voices USA presents a sampler of music celebrating this effort to infuse light and joy into the holiday season. We go from Thanksgiving to Christmas to Chanukah and to the New Year, with both new music and traditional carols - an emotional journey through the holiday seasons. Judith Clurman's Essential Voices USA is one of New York's preeminent choral ensembles - it performs in many of the city's iconic venues and events and records and premieres works by America's finest composers and lyricists. Regularly on stage with the New York Pops in it's Carnegie Hall subscription series, televised on NBC's July 4th Macy's 2014 Spectacular Fireworks and the Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting in 2011 and 2012, the ensemble comprises a talented roster of seasoned professionals and auditioned volunteers, dynamically fitted to the unique needs of each project.

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A varied and entertaining programme which gives a good impression of Vivaldi's writing for the lute.

The title of this disc leads one to expect pieces with a solo part for the lute. One wonders why three compositions have been included without a lute part. The reason is that in the motet and the two sinfonias the basso continuo is performed on theorbo, a lute with longer bass strings. This is joined by the lute in the motet. That results in a characteristic sound which is more intimate than with a harpsichord playing the bass part. Intimacy is a feature of this recording anyway. Some fast movements are played in a more moderate tempo than we are used to hear in Vivaldi's music, in particular in performances by Italian ensembles.

The fact that Vivaldi wrote a number of pieces for instrumental ensemble with a solo part for the lute is remarkable. Since the renaissance the lute had mainly been used as a solo instrument, to accompany singers and as part of an ensemble of various instruments. When the concertante style emerged in the early 17th century the lute - and in particular the theorbo - was used in the basso continuo. Compositions for lute solo with other instruments were rare in Italy. Most pieces of this kind were written by composers north of the Alps, in particular in Germany. It is assumed that the Concerto in D (RV 93) and the two trios were composed around 1730 when Vivaldi is thought to have stayed in Prague for a while. That could explain the solo role for the lute. The trios are obviously meant as chamber music, but the concerto is also likely to have been intended for a performance with one instrument per part, as on this disc. The lack of a part for the viola is in indication of this.

The Concerto in d minor (RV 540) is a special case; it is Vivaldi's only concerto for this combination. He was one of the first composers to write any concertante music for the viola d'amore. In his oeuvre we find six solo concertos and a concerto da camera with a viola d'amore part. Furthermore he used it as an obbligato instrument in arias in some vocal works. In the concerto the viola d'amore and the lute are treated on equal terms in the fast movements. In the largo the focus is on the viola d'amore whereas the lute is reduced to playing arpeggios.

The Sinfonias which open and close this disc belong to a considerable number of pieces which are referred to as concerti ripieni. They are scored for strings and b.c. and don't include any solo episodes. They are mostly very short - every movement taking barely two minutes or less. That depends on the choice of tempi and here these are mostly on the moderate side. It works quite well in the Sinfonia in d minor (RV 127) but less so in the Sinfonia in g minor (RV 157) where I find them just too slow.

In the trios and the concertos the tempi of the fast movements are also moderate. It lends them much grace, which suits these pieces well. Ronn McFarlane gives very fine performances of the solo parts. The violin and viola d'amore parts are also nicely played. I am less pleased by William Bauer's vibrato now and then in the largo of the Concerto in d minor.

Lastly the motet: it is very much in the style of Vivaldi's chamber cantatas. Like these the motets were first and foremost vehicles for the soloist to show his or her skills. Jennifer Ellis Kampani's skills are considerable as she convicingly deals with the many coloraturas, in particular in the opening aria. She has a pleasant voice which is perfectly suited to this repertoire.

It rounds off a programme which is varied and entertaining, and gives a good impression of Vivaldi's writing for the lute. The performances generally focus on the more intimate and graceful side of Vivaldi's oeuvre. There are no exaggerations as one meets them now and then in Italian performances of this repertoire.

-- Johan van Veen, MusicWeb International

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The unique guitar duo The Czar's Guitars was founded in 2004 by the well-known lute and guitar virtuoso, John Schneiderman and Oleg Timofeyev, the expert on the Russian seven-string guitar. The musicians joined their forces to revive the legacy of the Russian guitar, the instrument that unlike it's Western-European cousin is only now gaining the respect and recognition it deserves.

Souvenirs of Russia is considered to be a Russian tribute to the Spanish composer, Fernando Sor (1778-1839), or even more specifically, to his famous guitar duet Souvenir de Russie (Op. 63). Sor's masterpiece is the foundation of this album. It is surrounded with real Russian guitar music that would create an unusual context for Sor's piece and would also illustrate how the Russian musical culture was organically connected to the repertoires in Western and Central Europe.

Complete variations for cello and piano – 2 complete performances on modern and period instruments.

GRAMMY award winning pianist Lambert Orkis and Principal cellist for the National Symphony Orchestra, David Hardy, have delivered an entirely new way to hear this spectacular repertoire. This 4 disc set provides the listener with 2 completely different listening experiences for these pieces. First, the works are performed as they are most often heard in performance today, on a modern piano and the cello strung with steel strings. Next, the listener is transported into the time that the works were originally written with a second complete performance on 3 period correct forte pianos, and with the cello now strung with traditional gut strings.

The difference in tone colors is not the only contrast between the two interpretations of these Beethoven masterworks. Both performers, are each masters of modern and period performance practice, and they both adjust performance practice and interpretations in the two versions. That also contribute to the accompanying notes for the album.

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Passion, excitement, sorrow, and celebration all fill the room with this new exciting release of Biber: Mystery Sonatas by Julia Wedman. Though the Mystery Sonatas (also called the Rosary Sonatas) weren’t discovered until the late 19th century, these master works of violin virtuosity that employs extensive scordutura (multiple tunings) for the performer have become a favorite of Baroque Music lovers and violinists the world over. After 2 years of research leading up to the recording, Ms. Wedman has brought a new life and impassioned vision to these works.

R E V I E W S:

The music sparkles, and the liner notes are both visually appealing and extremely informative, with comprehensive historic description as well as Julia’s musical impressions of each of the 16 sonatas. What fun, for a lover of Baroque music!

-- Laurie Niles, Violinist.com

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Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber's Mystery Sonatas, composed in the 1670s and 1680s, have almost as many interpretations as there are violinists. They're sometimes known as the "Rosary Sonatas," for the "mysteries" involved are the so-called Mysteries of the Rosary, episodes from the life of Christ that furnish material for meditative prayers undertaken with the devotional aid of Rosary prayer beads. Engravings of these episodes appear in Biber's original presentation manuscript of these works (whose cover is missing), and Canadian violinist Julia Wedman, inspired by paintings of the Mysteries of the Rosary she saw in the Aula Academica in Salzburg, emphasizes the sonatas' programmatic detail in her readings. There's no firm evidence that Biber himself was inspired by these paintings, but the idea isn't implausible. Wedman makes two unusual choices in implementing her programmatic idea. The first she shares with Andrew Manze and a few other violinists: instead of switching off among violins as Biber's scordatura or retuning directions become progressively more bizarre, she continues to play the same violin, forcing it into contortions as it approaches Christ's crucifixion and other, well, crucial episodes. This is not the usual approach, but it is persuasive if only because violinists in Biber's time did not possess a rack full of instruments. Wedman's second procedure may be less justifiable historically: she enlists the continuo players in her attempt to make these sonatas into detailed representational works. The same logic that supports her single-violin approach puts the continuo in question: would Biber or other violinists presenting these piece have had the luxury of trading off among gamba, theorbo, archlute, organ, harpsichord, cello, and harp as Wedman's accompanists do here? It's not likely, and it takes the focus off the violin in true virtuoso works. Her realization is never unmusical, however, and it builds nicely to the Crucifixion and Resurrection movements. She has plenty of technical resources to bear on the Passacaglia "The Guardian Angel," which on this and several other recordings is deployed as a finale to the Mystery Sonata cycle. This is an unusually speculative set of Mystery Sonatas, but one that will appeal to those who have come under the work's spell (if that word is permissible here). Notes, partly by Wedman herself, are in English only.

-- James Manheim, All Music Guide

The progress of Spanish colonization in the New World through the 16th and 17th century was such that during the Baroque Era the state of classical music was more advanced in Latin America than it was up north. This ambitious collection of vocal pieces by the Venezuelan early music group Camerata Renacentista de Caracas shows the geographical breadth, if not the stylistic variety, of the Latin American baroque with composers, nearly all of Spanish birth, who were based in Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Many of the selections are villancicos, a ubiquitous Spanish poetic form from the 15th century which lent itself to music, often with instrumental accompaniment, both secular and sacred: in the latter development, of which there are several examples here, it became a type of Christmas carol. By and large this is lovely and invigorating music, given alert and agile performances.

Bringing together three of the most renowned practitioners of historically-appropriate performance of Early Music and Baroque repertoires, the Sono Luminus release of Io Vidi in Terraprovides a rare immersion into a mysterious world that, despite its relative obscurity in the perspectives of 21st century observers, shaped almost every aspect of music as it blossomed in subsequent generations. José Lemos shares his passion for the Italian vocal music of the 17th century with friends and frequent collaborators Deborah Fox, theorbist and baroque guitarist, and GRAMMY®-nominated harpsichordist Jory Vinikour, as well as with listeners throughout the world.

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This set includes a Blu-ray Audio disc playable on Blu-ray players only and a standard CD playable on all CD players.

In the Light of Air is a tetralogy of works that together form a structure of a single piece. The four movements bear the titles Luminance, Serenity, Existence, and Remembrance and are connected by short transitions to form a seamless flow throughout the work.

REVIEW:

The meditative, texturally rich landscapes of 'In the Light of Air' for viola, cello, harp, piano, percussion, and electronics by this young Icelandic composer are haunting, beautiful, and unsettling by turns. The sonic possibilities of the cello are explored in the intense 'Transitions', powerfully rendered by Michael Nicolas.

-- New York Times

Ruberto Chapí (1851-1909) is best known for a string of splendid Zarzuelas, the most famous of which is probably La Revoltosa, but he composed works in many different media and was a very well-trained composer generally. Naxos has a fine disc of his orchestral music, including his only symphony. Toward the end of his life he wrote four magnificent string quartets, two of which are presented here. Hopefully the rest will follow.

These are major works, full-length, and ambitious in scope–they play for about 35 minutes each. The First Quartet’s first movement features about a billion repetitions of its principal motive, but even there Chapí’s powers of invention are pretty astonishing. The music is insistent, but never dull. The master lyricist is always in evidence, with tunes that always sing, while the treatment of texture is astonishingly colorful. There’s plenty of pizzicato for variety, while the layout of the four instrumental lines is consistently airy and spacious. Combine that with the obviously Spanish melodic idiom, and the result is enchanting from start to finish.

The Cuarteto Latinoamericano plays with typical incisiveness and verve. However, the ensemble smartly tempers its trademark sharp sonority in a manner consistent with the music’s elegance and warmth, especially in the two slow-ish movements (Andante mosso and Allegretto, respectively). The truth is, there is very little actual slow music in these quartets. They quite literally seethe with energy, but the players differentiate and characterize each section notably well. Superb engineering from Sono Luminus captures every inflection with natural fidelity. A great release.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassocsToday.com

This set includes 1 blu-ray audio CD playable on blu-ray players only and 1 standard CD playable on all CD players.

The two-time winner of the top Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Del Sol String Quartet team up with didjeridu virtuoso Stephen Kent to bring to life the unique Complete String Quartets with Didjeridu by Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe. Elected an Australia National Trust Living Treasure in 2002, Sculthorpe’s output relates closely to Australia‘s social and physical climate and the Pacific Basin cultures. Since the mid 1980s, Kent pioneered the contemporary use of didjeridu in myriad associations and cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Sculthorpe passed away on Friday, August 8, 2014, at the age of 85. He was arguably Australia’s most famous composer. “His charm mixed with an instinct for austerity, spareness and an imagination for the sounds of a lonely Australian place created a uniquely distinctive musical voice,” said Peter McCallum of the Sydney Morning Herald. “Sculthorpe was the first Australian composer to create a distinctly Australian sound and style that communicated to a wide local and international audience [...] His genial influence on students and composers encouraged generations of composers to look inward rather than abroad to discover their own voice.”

Stephen Schultz takes on the daunting task of playing all five parts of these Concerti for Five Flutes from Boismortier - a feat never before attempted or accomplished! The French composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier wrote a great deal of popular music. The transverse flute was his favorite instrument and he considerably extended its repertory. Boismortier's music demonstrates great facility, and one regrets that he wrote so few works on a large scale.

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Ispirare consists of contemporary music for viola and the pieces that inspired their creation. These works were chosen not only because they are engaging to perform and listen to, but also for their capacity to provide a creative spark for other composers.

Violist Melia Watras has distinguished herself as one of her instrument’s leading voices. A soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and composer, Watras has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous new compositions, while appearing at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and Alice Tully Hall. Ispirare is her fourth solo CD, adding to an expanding discography that also includes 14 chamber music recordings.

Early in his career, George Rochberg was one of America’s leading proponents of serialism, but began to change course in the mid-1960s. The tragic death of his son contributed to this period of artistic change, and Rochberg broke from pure serialism in an effort to find a more personal expression through music. This album features his stunning “Sonata” for viola. 

Melia has been a long-time admirer of the amazing music of Shulamit Ran, and approached her with the idea of writing a new work influenced by an existing composition, which culminated in the beautiful “Perfect Storm.” Shulamit’s choice to pair her piece with Berio’s Black is the color… from “Folk Songs,” led Melia to Naturale. 

Luciano Berio reinvents American, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Italian folk tunes in his 1964 song cycle, “Folk Songs,” for mezzo-soprano and a small chamber group. Black is the color… has traditional lyrics with a melody written by Kentucky folk singer and composer John Jacob Niles.

GAIGEROVA Suite for Viola and Piano. WINKLER 2 Pieces, op. 31. Viola Sonata in c. JUON Viola Sonata in D • Eliesha Nelson (va); Glen Inanga (pn) • SONO LUMINUS DSL-92136 (71:02)

Varvara Adrianovna Gaigerova studied with Heinrich Neuhaus, Georgy Catoire, and Nikolai Miaskovsky at the Moscow Conservatory. The same professors taught Dmitri Kabalevsky, Sviatoslav Richter, and Emil Gilels. Gaigerova eventually became one of the Bolshoi Theatre’s hard-working pianists. In her spare time, she composed works for piano and viola as well as a symphony on Kalmyk themes and songs setting texts by Pushkin. She lived in terribly troubled times. For reasons unknown to us, she stayed in Russia when everyone who could left for greener pastures in Europe and the Americas. We do not know what happened to her during World War II, only that she died in 1944, when she was a mere 40 years old.

Eliesha Nelson’s viola has a warm, cream-laden tone. When you hear her play Gaigerova’s sensuous, heartstoppingly beautiful music, you wonder why we have not heard these works before. The Suite for Viola and Piano has sonorities that remind one a little of Scriabin, although Gaigerova’s composition is not in the least derivative. It begins with a propulsive Allegro agitato that gradually transitions to a slower movement. It finishes with a fast-paced section and a plaintive finale. Nelson brings out the luminous textures of this music with her engaging artistry. Her pianist, Glen Inanga, who plays a Steinway concert grand, is a most skillful partner. His contributions add greatly to the value of this disc. So does the clear and immediate sound of Sono Luminus engineers Daniel Shores and Dan Merceruio.

Alexander Winkler’s Elegiac Meditation is a slow and deliberate piece that begins with harmonious double-stopping. The pace shows off the ability of this violist, whose legato is as smooth as an old-fashioned butterscotch sundae. The next track offers a complete change of mood. La Toupie (The Top) describes the spinning of that once common toy. The viola imitates the rhythmic revolutions of a spinning top or wheel and you can see it whirl in your mind’s eye. To some degree, it is reminiscent of earlier composers’ spinning wheels, but here it is much happier and it injects a needed bit of comic relief into the program. The C-Minor Sonata brings us back to earth with compelling and significant music that touches the inner recesses of the soul. In the concluding variations on a tune from Brittany, the composer takes a beautiful folk tune and displays it in various guises: fast, slow, light, heavy, etc. It’s fun to listen to and you will notice that this finely crafted work is played with accuracy and precision.

Paul Juon is sometimes called the Russian Brahms and is thought to be a link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. His D-Major Sonata brings us a glimpse of rare Northern European sunshine. Nelson and Inanga bring out its uplifting melody with a forward motion that keeps the tension tight. Svetlana Stepchenko and Zoya Abolitz recorded this piece on a Russian disc in 1998, but it is no longer easy to find. In any case, there is no need to look for a better rendition than the one by Nelson and Inanga.

FANFARE: Maria Nockin

“Decades ago the Sugarcubes proved to the rest of the world that Icelandic rock was its own original creation - now Nordic Affect promises to do the same for the country’s new-music community.” - The Chicago Reader. "Taking risks, buoyed by collaborative support, contributes to a developing, changing self. Through collaboration we can transcend the constraints of biology, of time, of habit, and achieve a fuller self, beyond the limitations and the talents of the isolated individual." - John-Steiner, 2000. Raindamage is the fruit of artistic collaboration, a kind of a micro lab exploring the creative possibilities and processes involved in the making of an album. It is an attempt to unpack the ‘tacit processes of musical collaboration’ and immediately raises the question: how do you crack them open in order to gain a further insight, which in return can lead to new ways of doing? At the heart of Raindamage are the most valuable systems of all: the collective and the collaborative. The Raindamage narratives are of course as many as the participants. In my instance, the continual tossing of the creative ball between my generous friend and colleague Valgeir Sigurðsson and myself, led to the creation of VARP, an installation room which invites you into the nesting site of Raindamage: a space for ecological navigation. VARP had its premiere already in November 2016 in Sweden, before the album release. This only goes to show the fast changing work paradigm here at the cusp of the 21st century. An unreleased album had already become a new work. Icelandic ensemble Nordic Affect has been hailed for its “affectionate explorations” (BBC Music Magazine) and “commitment to their repertoire” (Classical Music). Founded in 2005, Nordic Affect was formed by a group of period instrument musicians who were united in their passion for viewing familiar musical forms from a different perspective and for daring to venture into new musical terrain. In 2013, the ensemble was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize and was named Performer of the Year at the Iceland Music Awards in 2014. Believing that music knows no boundaries, Nordic Affect has brought its music-making to contemporary and rock audiences alike and performed to critical acclaim at festivals such as TRANSIT festival, Dark Music Days, November Music, BRQ Vantaa Festival, Estonian Music Days and Iceland Airwaves. Its members have individually performed and recorded with artists and groups such as The English Concert, Concerto Copenhagen, Anima Eterna Brugge and Björk.