This album came to me in a fit of stillness. I had been moving so much and for so long that I forgot that my favorite thing to do is to just sit. Sitting in stillness involves watching, waiting, listening, and observing. It involves becoming aware of the edges of things - in my case, where my body ends and the chair begins, where a bird call starts and a melody has always existed, where a cloud has always been a storm and the storm is me. When I wrote these songs, I was sitting still and looking at the sea. Yes, the actual sea, but also the sea of my childhood and the sea of my recurring dreams. In the process of writing, I've learned that if I look long enough, rooms that I didn't previously have access to emerge, floating in front of me like hard working tugboats, pulling behind them all the postcards that I've written to myself. I've learned that if I listen long enough, a vine will always grow out my head and become a phone cord, connecting me to all the times I've wanted to tell you I love you and have held it back. - Alex Sopp

Locke, M.: Consorts in 2 Parts

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Baltimore Consort. Soloists: Danielle Svonavec, Mindy Rosenfeld.

Classical Music

Winner of the prestigious CMA Cleveland Quartet Award, Philadelphia’s Jasper String Quartet is the Professional Quartet in Residence at Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians. The Jaspers record exclusively for Sono Luminus and have released three highly acclaimed albums in addition to this one. This new release features music by some of America’s leading composers, including Caroline Shaw, Missy mazzoli, David Lang, Ted Hearne, and Annie Gosfield. The quartet writes: “The seven pieces on this album represent a collection of treasures we’ve discovered from this century. One of these pieces, Annie Gosfield’s “The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon,” was written expressly for our quartet. The rest we unearthed as we sifted through the vibrant and varied landscape of music being created today…” “The Jaspers… match their sounds perfectly, as if each swelling chord were coming out of a single, impossibly well-tuned organ, instead of four distinct instruments.” (New Haven Advocate)

Alza tu voz: Himnos de Charles Wesley is the Spanish-language companion to the album, Lift Up Your Voice: Hymns of Charles Wesley, a powerful selection of Wesley hymns to be released in both English and Spanish. Considered of one of the most noted writers of Christian hymnals with a staggering output that included 6,000 documented works, this collection features the acclaimed ensemble, and commissioned for this piece by the Foundation: The Choral Arts Society of Washington's Chamber Singers in a selection of his most popular hymns, with the premiere of some translations heard for the first time.

The album contains a Blu-ray® surround sound audio disc and a standard stereo CD of the same music.

5 Stars (out of 5)

The seven members of Ensemble Galilei—Isaac Alderson (flute and uilleann pipes), Hanneke Cassel (fiddle), Ryan McKasson (fiddle), Kathryn Montoya (pennywhistles, shawm, and recorders), Jackie Moran (bodhran, banjo), Sue Richards (harp), and 1990 founder Carolyn Surrick (viola da gamba) are an eclectic group that completely transcend any stereotypes in terms of musical when’s, where’s, or how’s. The only important thing in this newly fashioned Christmas season album is the why, and that is answered by Carolyn Surrick when she speaks of the idea of this album coalescing among several of the members when in Jacksonville, Florida followed by a Winter Solstice concert in December of 2012: “the music that we have known and loved for our whole lives took on a different meaning, imbued with grace and soulfulness.”

Any recording with a banjo, viola da gamba, and harp has got to be well-considered and carefully planned, right? But I don’t sense the wonderful congruousness of this combination, among others, as being something that is planned from an orchestration viewpoint. Rather, it’s the performances themselves, so beautifully crafted and miraculously presented, coupled with a spirituality and uplifting sensibility that allows these disparate lions and lambs to lie down with one another and create such uplifting timbres. If love of music can come across in performances—and I surely think it can—this album would be a demonstration disc of that quality.

Along with tried and true favorites there are also some original compositions as well, and they fit just like a glove. This is quite simply a stunning album, and I can’t imagine a better seasonal offering coming along this year. With spectacular Blu-ray audio surround sound (though be warned it is recorded at a high level and you will want to turn it down from your regular settings) and an accompanying CD, the only thing I wish there was more of that is missing is more music! But I can’t complain—this is a spectacular album.

– Audiophile Audition

Dorian Sono Luminus invites you to a night at the opera with this 2 CD release of Adolf Hasse’s serenata Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, performed by the Houston-based ensemble Ars Lyrica. Founded in 1998 by harpsichordist and conductor Matthew Dirst, Ars Lyrica Houston has begun to make a name for itself in the international early music community. Gramophone recently praised Ars Lyrica’s début CD (A SCARLATTI Euridice dall'Inferno, La Concettione della Beata Vergine Naxos 8.570950) for its ‘exemplary skill and taste’, the ensemble’s musicians for their ‘impassioned performance’. In 1721 Johann Adolf Hasse traveled to Italy to hone his craft and seek his fortune. Settling in Naples, Hasse studied composition first with Nicola Porpora, then Alessandro Scarlatti, and began to write seriously for the stage. By 1730 he produced at least seven operas, eight intermezzi, and three serenate, the most significant of which is Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra. Hasse’s score makes vivid the complex emotions of his title characters in eight arias, two duets, and some highly expressive recitative; the whole is introduced by a Sinfonia in two movements. Though the work is scored for just strings and continuo, this recording adds various woodwind colors (oboes, recorders, flute, and bassoon), rendering even more colorful Hasse’s imaginative and supple ideas. This 2-CD set will enchant the early music community, thrill the opera lover, and intrigue all lovers of classical music.

In an incredible illustration of virtuosic performance, Sono Luminus brings you The Complete Harpsichord Works of Rameau, with world reknowned harpsichordist Jory Vinikour. Rameau’s compositional penchant for combining technical prowess with musical artistry is brilliantly showcased on this two disc set of solo harpsichord music.

Rameau’s output as a composer for solo harpsichord must be considered among the most important in French 18th century keyboard repertoire, along with that of François Couperin. The musical and harmonic ingenuity demonstrated throughout these works, as well as Rameau’s uniquely idiomatic approach to the harpsichord, ensure these works a permanent place in the repertoire of all harpsichordists.

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REVIEW:

Vinikour’s performances are so buoyant, glistening or noble that you’ll likely find yourself glued to your speakers (or headphones). And if you’re accustomed to hearing the harpsichord at some distance in a concert hall, be prepared to listen as if you’re standing next to the keyboard or hovering over the strings. As played by Vinikour on a 2005 Wolf harpsichord based on a 1707 Nicholas Dumont, Rameau’s creations are narratives of robust and urgent vibrancy.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

Classical Music

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.

This selection is a 2-disc set, containing an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players as well as a standard CD.

Sono Luminus presents this uniquely engaging collection of music that embodies the American spirit in Americana, the latest release by Modern Mandolin Quartet.

Expressing their opinion on their choices of musical selections for this album, the quartet writes “This music attracted us because of the wonderful way it sounds on our instruments, particularly the Dvorák. Since the musical character of the pieces is based on various forms of American music, it lends itself extremely well to the mandolin. While many selections for piano and string music rely on idioms and techniques that may not transpose well to the mandolin, the pieces included on this disc were chosen for their vitality and the way they jumped right off the page.”

The Modern Mandolin Quartet was formed in 1985 to give a new voice to that most American of musical instruments, the mandolin. Following the tradition of the mandolin orchestras and chamber groups from the early twentieth century, the Modern Mandolin Quartet uses the instruments of the mandolin family which correspond to the conventional string quartet (two mandolins, mandola, and mandocello). To date the Quartet has arranged and performed over 90 works originally written for orchestra, chamber ensemble, piano, guitar and string quartet.

“MMQ play dead-straight, spot-on, and packed with freshness and vitality of a kind that is rare in material of this type. These are not down-scaled, make-em-easy, just-for-kicks charts either - they are a Major Thing. TRIPLE MUST!” – Fanfare

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

Classical Music