Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The focus of this album, consisting almost entirely of world premiere recordings on period instruments in modern times, is on Johann David Heinichen. Ensemble Sans Souci/Giuseppe Nalin: oboe, leader/Nicol� Dotti: oboe/Paolo Tognon: bassoon/Fabiano Merlante: theorbo, archlute, viola da gamba/Massimiliano Varusio: cello, viola da gamba/Michele Gallo: bass/Marco Vincenzi: harpsichord.

John Dowland was the most famous English lutenist composer and his considerable reputation during his lifetime extended across Europe as a result of his extensive travels and appointments at several continental courts. In the address "To the reader" in his song book A Pilgrimes Solace published in 1612 he recorded that "being I am now entered into the fiftieth year of mine age" which means he was born in or around 1563. By 1588, when he was twenty-five, he was already listed amongst English musicians worthy of honor in Dr. John Case's Apologia musices and was again listed as one of England's greatest musicians in Francis Meres Palladis Tamia of 1598, but had to wait until 1612 to gain the appointment in the English court that he so much desired. Paul Beier lives in Milan, Italy, and teaches lute at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado. Alongside his concert and teaching activity, he also studies and researches historical sources of the lute repertoire. His recordings have received prizes and awards in the specialized international press.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Manuel Maria Ponce was born in Fresnillo, Mexico on 8 December 1882. He began his musical studies in Aguascalientes and later moved to Mexico City where he enrolled at the National College of Music. In 1904, Ponce travelled to Europe to complete his studies, in Bologna with Enrico Bossi and Luigi Torchi and in Berlin with M. Krause. After returning home, he held a variety of teaching posts at the National College of Music in Mexico City where he had once studied. Ponce was never one to rest on his laurels and although he had already done a great deal of composing and teaching, after World War I he decided to return to Europe to resume studying. In Paris in 1925, he took classes with French composer Paul Dukas, who held his student in the greatest esteem - Ponce was awarded full marks - and made no secret of it. The quality and quantity of Manuel Ponce's compositions for the guitar makes them one of the major bodies of work in music in the first half of the twentieth century, although he wrote practically all of them in a period of just nine years, between 1923 and 1932. Ponce was constantly spurred on and encouraged by the ever-enthusiastic Andr�s Segovia, who applied himself to each new piece in rehearsal and in concert with a zeal and commitment unmatched by even the most forward-looking proponent of the avant-garde. And so, in this short period of time, Ponce produced five sonatas, three themes and variations, a cycle of twenty four preludes, two suites in baroque style, a sonata for guitar and harpsichord and some ten small-scale pieces which were no less inspired in character than their bigger brethren.

Classical Music

A transcription for solo violin, of some of the most famous soundtracks of Nino Rota, may seem like a dangerous challenge. However, Mauro Tortorelli manages to keep Rota's style intact, adapting it to a purely virtuoso writing that never overlaps the frankness and freshness of the original material.

Classical Music