This intriguing album intertwines tenor cantatas and recorder sonatas. The chosen music comes from the highest time in Italian Baroque. Previous recordings by the La Tempesta Basel have been critically acclaimed. "The La Tempesta ensemble from Basel is led by recorder player Muriel Rienth, who performs with clarity and a good sense of phrasing. She blends with the voice, her husband Felix Rienth, so that the two form an inseparable duo. The continuo group remains discretely in the background, giving a solid foundation but never overshadowing the upper lines.” (Fanfare) "Felix Rienth has a light and flexible tenor, always on pitch and giving the music much in the way of fine nuance, making Pepusch come alive. I am also impressed by Norberto Broggini’s playing of the organ voluntaries. He has a fine knack for choosing good registrations that are never overbearing, but always bring out the frenetic lines with seeming ease. This is one fine disc, and not only does Pepusch need to be resurrected beyond The Beggar’s Opera, this performance does his competent and interesting music full justice." (Fanfare)

In the early 17th century, in order to express complex emotions such as love, musicians and poets inspired by the classic historic past, searched for semanticity about which Zarlino had already talked on his Institutioni harmoniche (1558). Later, Vincenzo Galilei set up in 1581 the basis on which ‘the new music’ would be built, relating words and sounds to the emotional world of the listener. And from that very moment, the Theory of the Affections stopped being just a theory and turned into a language that gets the spectator involved in the effects. These musicians and poets who provided their words at the service of music, developed a real intellectual and emotional game. They managed to delve into the intricacies of love, fighting against the annoyance and despair of rejection. Who better than the continuous dialogue between musician and poet to express it? This is the first recital of young Spanish countertenor, Pedro Perez.

Written as a tribute to the little-known poets who wrote during the Elizabethan period, intended to be accompanied by the music of the period, this new CD features writing by Javier Lorenzo Candel interspersed with works by Dowland, Gibbons, and more.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The activity in the house of the very young Domenico Scarlatti had to be full of a frenetic musical activity. The commitments of his father, the great Alessandro Scarlatti, decided the daily rhythm of the home; librettists were received, rehearsals were organized, scores were corrected, instruments were tuned. In spite of the tremendous relevance that the Neapolitan conservatories had for their very complete musical training, there is no evidence that Domenico was attached to any of them; his family and especially his father took up part of his time in the young man's musical education. Dominico- the creator of fifteen operas, dozens of arias, duets, cantatas, oratorios and several religious works- also wrote 555 harpsichord sonatas which supported the full weight of his fame as a composer. This is the third solo recording by the harpsichordist Andres Alberto Gomez.

What greater gift can there be for a recorder player, than Handel's Sonatas for recorder and basso continuo? Having loved the masterpiece since she came across it in her studies, Muriel Rochat Rienth simply hoped that someday, she would have the opportunity to record this opus magnum.

Classical Music

APOTEOSIS - VIOLA BASTARDA

From Spain to New Spain: music and modernity in the 18th Century. The first half of the 18th Century saw a major change in musical taste all over Europe. To be fashionable became a composer's main concern, trying to please both the audience as well as their sponsors, which brought about a continual circulation of new music, especially that composed by Italians. In this regard, the Spanish monarchy was no exception.

The composers included in this recording belong to a generation born around 1700. These musicians were very much influenced by Neapolitan artists, whose music enjoyed a wide diffusion throughout the whole Hispanic world during the first half of the 18th Century. It was these composers who, on a more regular basis, began writing in Spain for the flute, an instrument which has a special presence in this CD. Also included is a set of instrumental verses in second tone (mode) by Jerusalem. These pieces are part of a collection of instrumental verses by the Neapolitan composer preserved to this day in the musical archive of the Mexico City Cathedral. The function of these pieces was to substitute some verses of liturgical text, alternating sung sections with instrumental ones.

Mauro Giuliani was known throughout the music world as the “Mozart of the guitar”. The vocal works recorded on this recording testify to Giuliani’s preference for Italian songs. Especially in the Sei Ariette or “Little Arias”, a more modest form of the opera aria, the resemblance to the Italian bel canto aria is unmistakable. The selection presented here was published in 1818 in Vienna. In contrast to this, Giuliani’s Sechs Lieder, or “Six Songs”, with their German texts by Goethe, Schiller, Matthisson and others, are clearly more similar to Schubert's Lieder. Published in 1817 in Vienna, these songs bear witness to the birth of the Viennese Biedermeier period. Finally, the Sei Cavatine consist of six Italian arias, in which Giuliani contrasts skillfully brilliant pieces with sensitive melancholic ones, and this in a clearly opera-like format.

The Music of the King is supported by a huge structure; its three titanic arms surround the musical life of a complex and capricious court: La Chapelle Royale, La Musique de la Chambre y La Grande Ecurie. Versailles does not miss a day without music. Ensembles with a remarkable expressive power are the reflection of a monarch who can do everything. The music has a determinant impact on the life of the palace, the court it mimics with its own environment. Every single piece of furniture is decorated in a very ornamented way; any inch of raw material cannot be at sight. The body is hidden in ornamented clothes, wigs, face powder, gloves... Any single inch of skin can be an exhibit. Music is covered by a silky veil in which ornamentation is an inseparable part of its pronunciation. The Court is like that, a divine theater of semblances. Lambert, Lully, Du Mont, De Lalande, Marais, Charpentier, Couperin... big names, famous composers. Some of them are responsible of the most prestigious orchestras of Europe: Les Vingt-quatre Violons, Les Petit Violons, Les Simphonistes de la Chambre... How would a day in their life be? What instrument would they use? What would they feel when they played in front of the King of France? What would they comment among themselves? Questions that are lost in the corridors of time.

Telemann was a musician and composer who lived and worked in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, Frankfurt/Main, and Hamburg. He is considered the most important German composer of the late baroque era, and an extraordinarily productive musician with an oeuvre of over 3,600 works which cover all genres, including opera. He was one of the few artists of his era who was well respected during his lifetime, and he was able to live comfortably from his work as a musician. He was entirely self-taught, playing a variety of instruments, including the recorder, the violin, and the harpsichord. He was also a great proponent of the recorder, which is why he is often described as the greatest recorder composer. His work for the ‘flauto dolce’ includes solo concerts, suites, sonatas, trio sonatas, as well as extended recorder parts in oratorios, passions, and cantatas. Of special significance are the “12 Fantasias for Solo Flute,” published in Hamburg in 1733, which, along with the “36 Fantasias for Harpsichord,” the “12 Fantasias for Solo Violin,” and the “12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba,” complement Telemann’s oeuvre for solo instruments without bass accompaniment. The “12 Fantasias” recorded on this album are based on a transposition for treble recorder which is stored in the library of the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels.

Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768) crossed between the main European cultural centers of the 18th century to show his instrumental mastery and virtuosity as a violinist: Florence, London, Dresden, Venice... Everything seems to indicate that he had an eccentric and arrogant character, with enough intensity to make his way of playing something completely genuine. According to the musicologist Charles Burney, around 1733 there was no concert in London in which he did not participate with a violin solo. Giovanni Maria Casani, one of his teachers, expressed his opinion about him and his father: “Playing the violin together. One, old and full of honors, the other young and wanting to show the ease with which he overcame any slightest obstacle in the score. It was wonderful for everyone to listen to them, because the heart, and not just the bravery, guided and accompanied the fingers and the bow of these virtuosos”.

The collection he published in 1716 has twelve sonatas for violin or recorder and basso continuo, a "small essay on my musical studies." It is dedicated with much gratitude to the Elector Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, who supported Veracini to secure a position as a violinist at the Dresden court despite the fact that no violinist was needed at the time, a circumstance that produced more than notable tensions with Volumier, the conductor of the Dresden orchestra.

Here, Muriel Rochat Rienth performs the solo lines on recorder.