Last Train – The Big Picture (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:21 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deaf Rock a division of Pegase
2019, the time is more than ever questioned for Last Train: after the success and the tours, the group seems to want to return to a form of wisdom, which could already be seen in the excerpt “The Idea of Someone” “. It is indeed after a long necessary break that Last Train will sign his big return, on September 13th, with the album The Big Picture. An “overview” in the form of a balance sheet, a look in the rearview mirror necessarily a little nostalgic, materialized in the latest excerpt, “The Big Picture”.
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Lassen – Eventyrer (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:55 minutes | 422 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazzland Recordings
Bandleader Harald Lassen is conquering the world with his band Lassen, which includes Belgian hot shot pianist Bram de Looze (LABtrio) and a Norwegian rhythm section reminiscent of the seventies jazz heyday – Tore Flatjord (drums) and Stian Andersen (bass).
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Nordic Voices, Berit Opheim Versto – HIMMELKVAD (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:12:49 minutes | 2,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2L
The Nordic Council Music Prize 2010 was awarded to the Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen. His “Opus 42” represents a true renewal of Nordic vocal music. This strikingly beautiful piece reveals the common denominators in ancient and ultra-modern sounds, drawing our attention to the similarities between Scandinavian folk traditions and the music we might find in, say, the Middle East or India. Lasse Thoresen not only uses folk sounds to spice up art music, he also integrates its finely tuned microtonality, spectral overtones, harmonies and rhythms into the contemporary, modernist project in a truly pioneering manner. A project like this depends upon close collaboration with skilled musicians who are willing to take risks. Thoresen found them in the vocal ensemble Nordic Voices and folk singer Berit Opheim Versto.
Artistic creativity, versatility and technical precision are the main elements that make up NORDIC VOICES. The six-voice a cappella group was formed in 1996 and comprises graduates from the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Norwegian Academy of Opera, who, in addition to their singing backgrounds, have a broad range of experience from choral conducting to teacher training and composition. It is perhaps this range of interests that leads them to explore a wider than usual spectrum of musical expression, from plainchant to new works commissioned from leading Norwegian composers; from the most sacred of religious texts to the definitely profane. Nordic Voices are an unusual blend of sophisticated music-making and stylish performance, more often than not with more than a dash of humour.
5.0 SURROUND + STEREO produced in DXD (Digital eXtreme Definition 352kHz/24bit) by Lindberg Lyd, Norway 2l.no
Nordic Voices, Berit Opheim Versto – HIMMELKVAD (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:12:49 minutes | 2,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2L
The Nordic Council Music Prize 2010 was awarded to the Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen. His “Opus 42” represents a true renewal of Nordic vocal music. This strikingly beautiful piece reveals the common denominators in ancient and ultra-modern sounds, drawing our attention to the similarities between Scandinavian folk traditions and the music we might find in, say, the Middle East or India. Lasse Thoresen not only uses folk sounds to spice up art music, he also integrates its finely tuned microtonality, spectral overtones, harmonies and rhythms into the contemporary, modernist project in a truly pioneering manner. A project like this depends upon close collaboration with skilled musicians who are willing to take risks. Thoresen found them in the vocal ensemble Nordic Voices and folk singer Berit Opheim Versto.
Artistic creativity, versatility and technical precision are the main elements that make up NORDIC VOICES. The six-voice a cappella group was formed in 1996 and comprises graduates from the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Norwegian Academy of Opera, who, in addition to their singing backgrounds, have a broad range of experience from choral conducting to teacher training and composition. It is perhaps this range of interests that leads them to explore a wider than usual spectrum of musical expression, from plainchant to new works commissioned from leading Norwegian composers; from the most sacred of religious texts to the definitely profane. Nordic Voices are an unusual blend of sophisticated music-making and stylish performance, more often than not with more than a dash of humour.
5.0 SURROUND + STEREO produced in DXD (Digital eXtreme Definition 352kHz/24bit) by Lindberg Lyd, Norway 2l.no
LaSauce – Sindisiwe (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 37:50 minutes | 425 MB | Genre: R&B
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ambitiouz Entertainment
Fans are pleased and excited with the drop of the new LaSauce album. The Singer / Songwriter has finally decided to follow up her debut album ‘Broken Lipstick’ with the her new and 2nd album, ‘Sindisiwe’. LaSauce first came to fame after she signed with Ambitiouz Ent back in 2017 and released the single ‘Coolerbag’. However, she really stole South African hearts when she released the follow up single, ‘I do’ which featured Amanda Black.
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LaSalle Quartet – Beethoven: Late Quartets (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:15:35 minutes | 3,50 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Ludwig van Beethoven war weit mehr als der größte Symphoniker der Geschichte und Gigant am Übergang von der klassischen zur romantischen Epoche, an der Wegscheidung vom Feudalismus zur Aufklärung. Kein anderer Name steht bis heut so symbolisch für die Idee der musikalischen Revolution wie jener Beethovens. Für die Kenner sind es dabei noch weit mehr als Symphonien oder Klaviersonaten die Streichquartette, mit denen er den Gang der Musikgeschichte massiv beeinflusste und bis heute mit aller Macht weiterwirkt. Unter diesen sind es insbesondere die fünf späten Streichquartette, entstanden nach der 9. Symphonie und der Missa solemnis, in welchen er eine Freiheit, Fusion der tradierten und erneuernden Mittel und Entfaltung der poetischen Fantasie erreichte, die unübertroffen bleiben. Zur grandiosen, bei Brilliant erhältlichen Gesamteinspielung seiner Quartette durch das Guarneri Quartet bilden die Aufnahmen des LaSalle Quartet einen bemerkenswerten Kontrast, indem sie die sperrigen, querständigen, rauhen, klanglich kompromisslosen Aspekte, an welche später Mahler, die Zweite Wiener Schule und die seriellen Komponisten der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts anknüpfen sollten, herausstreicht. Eine obsessive Musik jenseits aller Gefälligkeiten, die in der monolithischen Architektur der Großen Fuge gipfelt.
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Las cobras – Selva (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 45:23 minutes | 522 MB | Genre: Alternative, Indie
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fuzz Club Records
Emerging out of the small Uruguayan city of Canelones, in 2017 a new band named Las Cobras released their debut recordings – a 9-track album called ‘Temporal’ – and instantly became a name on the tongues of those tapped into the trans-Atlantic psychedelic underground. A couple of years on and the duo comprised of Leandro Rebellato and Sofía Aguerre are now gearing up to release their highly-anticipated sophomore album ‘Selva’ (translating from Spanish to ‘Jungle’.) Released once again on London-based label Fuzz Club, the album is due out January 10th.
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L’Arte dell’Arco, Francesco Galligioni & Roberto Loreggian – Lanzetti: Cello Sonatas (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 04:51:52 minutes | 5,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
A seminal moment in the birth of the cello as a solo instrument: historically informed performances of lively and athletic Baroque trio sonatas.
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L’arte del mondo & Werner Ehrhardt – Anton Zimmermann: Symphonies (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:50 minutes | 600 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
First world premiere on disc for these three Symphonies from Anton Zimmermann (1741-1781), a contemporary composer of Haydn, who unfortunately passed away at 39—because when listening to those gems, we wonder where he would have stopped had he lived up until, let’s say, 1810 for example… We notice straightaway that Zimmermann thumbs his nose at every standard: in the use of keys (in 1771, a symphony in E-minor was kind of a rarity: Haydn himself, a great experimenter, has only one under his belt), in the architecture—the order and type of movements are somewhat knocked over—and in the instrumentality too. Reckon that the Symphony in B-flat major uses wood instruments as well as as many soloists independent of the string instruments; and that in the splendid Symphony in C minor, beginning with a singular adagissimo, he doesn’t hesitate to include trombones. In 1770! An era when, at best, trombones were used for special effects at the opera, or to increase the solemnity of a piece of sacred music, but never in the symphonic field. Additionally, he doesn’t hesitate to finish two of these symphonies on an appeased pianissimo tone, where usually people end resoundingly. We eagerly await to discover the thirty-six other symphonies from this strange character. Icing on the cake, many of his works were long attributed to Haydn, because we couldn’t imagine so much bravery and genius being issued from a simple Zimmermann… The Arte del mondo performs in an exemplary way, conducted by Werner Ehrhardt.
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L’arte del mondo – Salieri: La scuola de’ gelosi (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:41:46 minutes | 1,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
In its day La scuola de’ gelosi (1778) was one of the best-known comic operas by Antonio Salieri (1750–1825), remaining a box-office hit for decades. All the more astonishing is the fact that it could sink into obscurity. Even Goethe was excited by this masterpiece: “The opera is the audience’s favourite, and the audience is right. It contains an astonishing richness and variety, and the subject is treated with the most exquisite taste. I was moved by every aria.” In the wake of its world premiere in Venice in 1778, La scuola de’ gelosi was performed in opera houses all over Europe, from Dresden, Vienna, Prague and Paris to cities as far away as London and St Petersburg, before it passed into near-oblivion. Not until well over two centuries later did Werner Ehrhardt and his ensemble, l’arte del mondo, rediscover this musical treasure. Their world-premiere recording affords impressive proof of Salieri’s abilities and explores his shrewd delineation of character, whereby jealousy repeatedly rears its head in ever-new guises.
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L’arte del mondo – Karl von Ordonez: Symphonies (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 57:43 minutes | 619 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Music Classical Local
Even during his own day Karl von Ordoñez (1734-1789; also written Karl Ordoniz) was never anything other than a star of the third magnitude, though this was due less to his undoubted gifts as a musician and more to the fact that for a member of the lower aristocracy a career in music was deemed unseemly. He was born in Vienna in 1734 and became an Austrian civil servant in 1758. Between then and his retirement twenty-five years later he was described first as a registrar with the Lower Austrian Regional Court and later as a Recorder. In between these times he is also referred to by the delightful honorary title of “supernumerary secretary”. Meanwhile he was also playing the violin in music ensembles at the Viennese court. In 1771, for example, he became the sixtieth member to join the recently formed Tonkünstler-Societät, Vienna’s oldest concert organisation, which had set itself the task of holding concerts in support of the widows and orphans of deceased musicians. Ordoñez is also listed as a violinist in the Vienna Court Orchestra in 1779, and so we may assume that he was also active as a musician in the Tonkünstler-Societät. If so, then this must say something about the standard of his playing, since the society normally accepted only professional musicians into its ranks – in keeping with its statues, they had to be “devoted to the free art of music”. What is beyond doubt is that the society performed a symphony by Ordoñez in 1777 – he had also been appearing in public as a composer since the late 1750s.
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L’Arte Del Mondo – Johannes Matthias Sperger: Symphonies (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:02:25 minutes | 639 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
Johannes Matthias Sperger was born in Feldsberg in 1750 and trained in Vienna as a contrabassist and composer from 1767. He worked from 1777 in the Hofkapelle of the Archbishop of Pressburg. From 1778 he was also a member in the Wiener Tonkünstlersozietät, in whose concerts he appeared several times with his own works and as soloist. From 1783 to 1786, Sperger was a member of the Hofkapelle of count Ludwig von Erdödy in Kohfidisch. From 1789 he was employed as first contrabassist of the Mecklenburg Schwerin Hofkapelle in Ludwigslust.
He was an extremely productive composer who wrote more than forty-four symphonies, numerous instrumental concertos, among them eighteen contrabass concertos, sonatas, rondos and dances, cantatas, choral works, and airs. He died in Schwerin, aged 62.
The orchestra l’arte del mondo, which was founded by artistic director Werner Ehrhardt in 2004, stands in the tradition of historical performance practice. This is the origin of the orchestra which also presents outstanding performances on modern instruments and with repertoire up to 20th century composers.
The orchestra’s creation was soon followed by invitations to perform in renowned festivals and concert series – such as the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele, Bonn’s Beethoven festival, Rheingau Musikfestival, Musikfestspielen Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, and the Cité de la musique in Paris – and to collaborate with the West German Broadcasting Company (WDR) and Deutschlandfunk.
This ensemble’s interesting oeuvre has been documented under the various cd labels. The recording list includes a number of world premiers and rediscovered orchestral works, operas, and oratorios. The recording of Nicolas Méhul’s comic opera L’Irato ou l’Emporté as well as the recording “Liaisons” with soprano Chen Reiss (2011) received the prestigious French award the “Diapason”
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L’arte del mondo – Goethe & Kayser: Scherz, List und Rache (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:04:14 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
Goethe as an opera librettist: in November 2019, an opera sensation was to be experienced at the Leverkusener Erholungshaus: 232 years after its creation, a comic opera was premiered with “Scherz, List und Rache”, to which none other than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had written the Libretto. The music was composed by Goethe’s childhood friend Philipp Christoph Kayser (1755-1823). Inspired by the Italian Buffo opera, Goethe and Kayser wanted to create a new kind of German opera with “Scherz, List und Rache”. The result was a turbulent three-person play about a young married couple who have been betrayed by an old money-hungry doctor for their inheritance.
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L’arte del mondo – Antonio Salieri: La Fiera di Venezia (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:23:01 minutes | 1,44 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
In 2016, audiences and critics applauded Werner Ehrhardt and his ensemble L’Arte del Mondo, who, while residing at Bayer Kultur in Leverkusen, produced the world’s first recording of La Scuola de’ Gelosi by the young Salieri, a pleasantly contrary, elegant and comic trifle. And so it’s only natural that the German ensemble should have thrown themselves into La Fiera di Venezia, written by the same composer at the age of 21.
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Lars Vogt, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi – Lars Vogt – W.A. Mozart Piano Concertos No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 & No. 27 in B-Flat Major, K. 595 (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 57:52 minutes | 513 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CAvi-music
Vienna 1785: „Wolfgang Amadeus would compose in his workroom and music seemed to flow from his pen. Soon he would write the opera Le Nozze di Figaro in these same quarters. He had just put the finishing touches on a new piano concerto: festive C Major, luxurious scoring including trumpets and timpani (K467). It was premièred on 12 March 1785 during one of the so-called “academy” concerts. Leopold, the father, was present and could hardly curb his enthusiasm: “The concerto was sensational, the orchestra first-rate”, he wrote to his daughter. He was also impressed by the music’s sheer technical difficulty: “Here, the pianist truly has something to keep his hands moving: one has to concede that this new concerto is surprisingly difficult”. However, this is not a work where Mozart lay particular emphasis on virtuoso aplomb; rather, the C-Major-Concerto draws its energy from “cheerful, open-hearted joy”, as Lars Vogt puts it, “at least in the outer movements. The middle movement, the well-known Andante, seems to contain a vision of paradise – this is an absolutely moving piece of music, provided one manages to create the illusion that it emerges out of nothingness”. Here, once more, we have the ingenious “Mozart Effect”: a beauty plain and simple, without ever descending into vulgarity. … When he was working on the first movement cadenza, his daughter – then four years old – was attempting to conquer the piano keys. A short little melody emerged from her first attempts, “and I incorporated it into my cadenza, concealing it at one point in the left-hand part”.
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