This oddly named recording does not contain any bagpipe music. What we do have is a collection of pieces for lute and viola da gamba featuring music by a host of baroque composers both familiar and obscure. The title was probably inspired by the opening tune, "The Brown Haired Maiden," a staple for Scottish bagpipe players. Two more arrangements of anonymous bagpipe tunes, "Bagpipes" and "Lancashire Pipes" round out the pipe connection.
Vittorio Ghielmi is clearly having fun when he imitates the droning sound of the bagpipes on his viola da gamba. When Ghielmi is joined by lutenist Luca Pianca, the result is inspired. The soloists also excel in the more introverted music of such composers as Marin Marais, Antoine Forqueray, Leopold Weiss and others. Pianca is magnificent in the solo lute pieces of Weiss, especially the expansive Praeludium et Fuga in E minor. Equally impressive is the gritty playing the duo brings to Marais's "La Paraza." Sumptuous sound quality and lavish packaging makes this recording a real treasure.
Includes division(s) on a ground by Christopher Simpson. Soloists: Vittorio Ghielmi, Luca Pianca.

Classical Music

The immediacy and power of La Gaia Scienza and Paolo Beschi takes your breath away. The sound of these outstanding musicians on original instruments is amazing and appealing, the phrasing and the interaction are exemplary, every note and every bar has been rethought. Chamber music full of contrasts and emotions. Adventurous souls should not hesitate, key works by Brahms, Haydn, Schubert and Schumann have never been heard like this before and as a special encore, highlights from Bach's Cello Solo Suites can be heard. Paolo Beschi (co-founder and cellist of "Il Giardino Armonico") conducts the ensemble "La Gaia Scienza" with pianist Federica Valli and violinist Stefano Barneschi. This group gives the world groundbreaking reinterpretations of romantic and baroque works. Pizzicato writes: "played vitally and pulsating, with feeling but without pathos."

Hank Roberts presents: On his debut album "Black Pastels" he put together the most innovative musicians of the N.Y. Jazz scene: Tim Berne, Ray Anderson, Robin Eubanks, Dave Taylor, Bill Frisell, Mark Dresser and Joey Baron. He wrote jazz history with the group "Miniature" and the song "Jersey Devil", and the Knitting Factory became a meeting point for the avant-garde scene. With Mark Feldman and Mark Dresser he formed the chamber music string trio Arcado and with Django Bates he played "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and opened up never-before-heard worlds of sound.

Masako Ohta retreats into the silence of the Waldhaus Grandsberg in the Bavarian Forest to dedicate herself to Japanese masterpieces in deep concentration and solitude. The Munich-based pianist takes us on a musical journey through time and invites us to experience extraordinary compositions from four centuries from the land of the rising sun. Thanks to Japan's temporary isolation and special island position, cultural characteristics are preserved that are still present in contemporary music. Sound creations of great Japanese composers such as Kengyo Yatsuhashi from the 17th century, Kengyo Yoshizawa from the 19th century, Toru Takemitsu from the 20th century as well as Toshio Hosokawa and Fumio Yasuda from the present are telling us about springtime at the sea, the rain tree, the singing of birds and dances of distant islands.

Baset writes the rare note "Allegro con valentía" at the beginning of his 10th symphony. It seems to be a declaration of intent when it comes to realizing his compositions, which is far removed from the fashion of Italian imitation. A breathtaking, experimental, courageous music that drinks from the theatrical effects of a fascinating time full of chiaroscuro (light and dark). A new work on the European music scene that demands an uncompromising, imaginative interpretation. Courageous! Forma Antiqva, directed by Aarón Zapico, nourished by the best generation of Spanish musicians, deals with the important phase of Spanish Baroque music in an ideal time of growth and development.

Twin Paradox, the debut album of the Dutch composer Loran Witteveen, who completed the Amsterdam Conservatory with summa cum laude, reveals a fascinating listening experience after a thought experiment by Albert Einstein. Witteveen deals with time and its relativity. Inspired by the twin paradox, he creates 12 musical pieces with a significant signature that interweave composition and improvisation and open up a journey through time and space. With Clemens van der Feen (bass) and Tristan Renfrow (drums), who are among the most impressive musicians in Holland, he realizes this recording with an ideal line-up. In his working process Witteveen is going for a different metaphors between composition and improvisation, between Boulez and Bley, Schönberg and Coltrane, Roslavetz and Taborn. The goal I had when composing these works is to create pieces where the through-composed parts as well as the improvisation forms are rhythmically flexible. As time itself is relative and different based upon your position in space, speed of traveling and so many other factors, I wanted to create music where time is not constant. (Loran Witteveen)

Coming off the immense success of the Billboard-charting Let me tell you — which received rave reviews from the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Wall St. Journal, and many more — Barbara Hannigan turns her attention to the work of Erik Satie as the musical world celebrates his 150th birthday. The disc focuses on one of the minimalist composer’s few elaborate masterpieces: the almost-forgotten vocal piece “Socrate,” on three Plato dialogues in French translation.

In celebration of Satie's 150th birthday, the venerable label Winter & Winter recorded a selection of works with the world-famous soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw, known for his outstanding Satie interpretations. “Socrate” is the central focus of the album, heard alongside “Trois Mélodies” from 1886, “Trois Autres Mélodies” from 1886–1906, and “Hymne” from 1891. Barbara Hannigan and Reinbert de Leeuw are two of the most important representatives of the contemporary classical music world.

The fantastic trilogy “Poem of a Cell“ works with the Jewish-Christian-Islamic culture. “Poem of a Cell“ puts the finger on the pulse of our time. It is a piece about the cruelty and sensuality of life, a free interpretation of excerpts from “The Song of Songs“ (Vol.1), “The flowing Light of the Godhead“ (Vol. 2) by Mechthild from Magdeburg and “Divine Love“ (Vol. 3) after “Unity with the Divine“ by Rabi'a of Basra. All three poems are based on the unifying theme that brings Judaism, Christianity and Islam together and bridges all their differences: love, ecstasy and, ultimately, the unification with the divine love. Vol. 2 “The flowing Light of the Godhead“ is a contemporary musical interpretation of the wonderful sensitive epic written by Mechthild of Magdeburg, a German nun from the 13th century. This album is a masterpiece by Exaudi Vocal Ensemble and Schlagquartett Köln (percussion ensemble Cologne). The Jewish composer and accordion player Alan Berne works together with the vocalist Fanny Winter who is interpreting the erotic poems of a woman who is deeply in love with the divine power.

The album “Divine Love“ completes the trilogy “Poem of a Cell.” Vol. 1 interprets excerpts of “Song of Songs“ from the Hebrew Bible, Vol. 2 deals with the love poems of the Christian nun Mechthild of Magdeburg. Vol. 3 transforms theses after Rabi’a of Basra into sounds and music and presents as a matching counterpart arrangements of Gabriel Fauré’s “Requiem“ and Antonio Vivaldi’s “Cum Dederit.” Rabi’a of Basra lived around 714 and 801 and is known as a Muslim saint and Sufi mystic. She was the first one who expounded the doctrine of Divine Love: “All love aims at the essence of unity. The highest love aims at eternal unity. I am searching for my lover, not his splendor of gifts, not visions, miracles and power over the material world.“ The wonderful Zanzibarian singer Saada Nassor celebrates in a duet with qanun player Rajab Suleiman the magic and mysticism of Rabi’a of Basra. Fumio Yasuda’s “Elternal Love“ is the opening track of the album which unfolds a mysterious positive force. On the contrary ”Battle over Aleppo“ reflects the greatest of tragedies our times. “Poem of a Cell“ is about desire and spite, longing and disgust, violence and lenity, destruction and salvation, separation and unification, innocence and guilt, permission and suppression, woman and man.

After 35 years, Winter & Winter dares to look back. For the anniversary, the artists present their Director’s Cut. Forma Antiqva presents Baset, Rameau, Steffani, Vivaldi, and In Paradisum according to Fauré by Yasuda is a special listening pleasure. Forma Antiqva, founded in 1998 by the brothers Aarón, Daniel and Pablo Zapico in Asturias, is considered to be the most courageous baroque ensemble in Spain. With variable formations - from the trio of the Zapico brothers (Concerto Zapico) to the baroque orchestra with outstanding performers of the young generation - the Zapicos deal with repertoire of the 17th / 18th centuries and the present in an original and bold way: from Spanish dance music to great works of the late baroque, including legacy revivals by authors such as Vicente Baset.

In 2017 Stefan Winter presented his sound- and 3-channel-film-installation Poem of a Cell at the African film festival ZIFF in Zanzibar, Tanzania, at the Jazz Festival in San Sebastian, Spain, at the Dr. Hecht Arts Center in Haifa, Israel, and at Rathausgalerie Kunsthalle Munich, Germany. In the second part of 2018 and early 2019 Poem of a Cell will be shown at Maerkisches Museum in Witten, Germany, at the international art festival FAB in Bordeaux, France and at OAG in Tokyo, Japan. Winter & Winter is presenting a set of three releases (Vol. 1, 2 and 3) with recorded works and sounds produced for Poem of a Cell. Uri Caine set in music the first chapter of “The Song of Songs“ from the Jewish Tanakh written for Exaudi and a gospel piece with the title “Shine“ for jazz ensemble. Besides these compositions and further arrangements by Uri Caine works by William Byrd, Joseph Haydn, Orlando di Lasso and Gustav Mahler can be discovered in outstanding recordings of classical and experimental music. Volume 2 will focus on the Christian mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg and Volume 3 on the Islamic Sufis Rabi’a of Basra. All three works are based on the unifying theme that brings Judaism, Christianity and Islam together and bridges all their differences: love, ecstasy and, ultimately, the unification with the divine love. It is about desire and spite, longing and disgust, violence and lenity, destruction and salvation, separation and unification, innocence and guilt, permission and suppression, woman and man. In Poem of a Cell reality and fantasy merge seamlessly. It is a stunning journey into the life of mankind.

In 1736 Janitsch revolutionized the music world with his weekly Friday academies (Freitagsakademien); This was the beginning of the upheaval from the courtly to the bourgeois concert scene. Die Freitagsakademie is now presenting its favorite works from Bach to Beethoven. Es gibt keine alte Musik! [Early Music is alive!] True to this credo, the Bernese music ensemble Die Freitagsakademie plays music from the 17th to the early 19th century in a wide variety of instrumentations and on instruments of the respective period. Following the example of the Berliner Freitags-Akademien [Berlin Friday Academies], which were established by the composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch in the first half of the 18th century, the ensemble Die Freitagsakademie [founded in 1993] is dedicated to playing baroque and classical music on period instruments and in historically informed practice, freeing this music from its museum dust and the wrong kind of reverence and turning these compositions into music of today, into captivating contemporary art.

Noël Akchoté, composer/guitarist from Paris, unites supposedly incompatible material on the album "My Choice": Zarah Leander's Nazi-era hit "Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt", Serge Gainsbourg's irony about Nazi refuge in South America "SS in Uruguay", Ornette Coleman's groundbreaking "Street Woman", Kylie Minoque's "Red Blooded Woman" and Paolo Conte's "Via Con Me" and one is amazed, because his choice is genius. It's wonderful, it's wonderful, it's wonderful! Everything comes together to form a new whole. "The strand always grows from it's middle, both sides - I don't believe in styles, nor genres. All proves that the original musical gesture remains the exact same since it first happened. I got hit by Jazz at earliest age because they had all to invent, another Blank Page. As many white pages as individuals, eternally. Because you can't, because it's too high, you will perpetually - Dare, fear, burn & adore. Reproduce. All arts are timing, so are lives. All arts are at present when coming near by. A frame is a length, a text a tone, a sound a height. The biggest lesson one can achieve is to really integrate the fact that by playing, writing, directing, performing, it will always be you and only doing so. Therefore only You can beat yourself at your own games."

Andres Linetzky is one of the most important composers and pianists of the Argentine tango and music scene in the 21st century, as he sparks a new tango wave with his music and reignites the renaissance of tango as dance music performed live at milongas. With the group Tangata Rea, at the beginning of the 90s, he marked the rebirth of Tango dance music. In 1999 he founded the group Vale Tango and with this ensemble he performed in more than twenty countries and fascinates audiences all over the world.