Ensemble Cairn, Guillaume Bourgogne – Pesson: Blanc mérité (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:05:06 minutes | 673 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Aeon
Lucid music. Vivacity, wit, intensity, foldings and unfoldings of the pointillist material, embracing the thing itself and its contradiction – sensuality, drollery, dances, abysses like sudden draughts of air. Movement and standstill . . . Music that slaps, pinches, bites, muffles, growls. Here Pesson reinvigorates what might (already) be his own classicism (Carmagnole); draws a pencil moustache on Mozart, who is more than willing to wear it (Transformations du Menuet K. 355); hounds his language so far into the corner that it seems different, and probably becomes so, in the intransigent light of Opałka (Blanc mérité); a language that ramifies and scintillates in Proust (Ne pas oublier coq rouge dans jour craquelé); grows geometric in Pérec (Neige bagatelle); and denudes itself in ‘enfantines’ (Musica ficta). The Ensemble Cairn, a faithful partner of the label, under its director Guillaume Bourgogne, leads us into territories that could hardly be droller.
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Ensemble Barocco di Napoli & Abchordis Ensemble – Il soffio di Partenope – Music for Woodwinds from 18th Century Naples (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:54 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi
Das Ensemble Barocco di Napoli und das Abchordis Ensemble präsentieren unter der Leitung von Tommaso Rossi Weltersteinspielungen von farbenprächtigen und wohlklingenden Werken für Holzblasinstrumente aus dem Neapel des 18. Jahrhunderts. Das Album zeigt, dass Neapel damals nicht nur eine Sänger-Hochburg, sondern seit 1570 auch Heimat einer leistungsstarken Holzbläserschule war, für welche die besten Komponisten der damaligen Zeit schrieben. Ausgewählt aus den Archiven der Stadt hat das Ensemble Werke von Barockkomponisten. Ein Album voller barocker Schmuckstücke!
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Ensemble Barocco Carlo Antonio Marino & Natale Arnoldi – Locatelli: 6 Concerti à 4, Op. 7 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:19:50 minutes | 809 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Tactus
The Baroque Ensemble “Carlo Antonio Marino”, directed by Natale Arnoldi, already protagonist of important Classical and late Baroque productions, within this album is faced with the concertos from the seventh opus by Pietro Antonio Locatelli, well known composer and violinist from Bergamo. When it appeared, this collection was not particularly successful; probably the mixture of different musical styles in the Concertos was not appreciated by the public, which by then was moving towards the new sensitivity of the galant style. Op.7, in any case, is an excellent and occasionally brilliant work of Locatelli’s: a musician who, in spite of the fact that in 1741 he had already attained fame and glory, did not hesitate to run the risk of attempting to renew the waning Italian Concerto, by experimenting with approaches that might accommodate the new trends, without however denying his own origins.
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Ensemble Aurora – The Fiery Genius: Neapolitan Instrumental Music for 1, 2, 3, and 4 Violins (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:08:38 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
The central role of Naples in the history of vocal music has so far overshadowed a rich tradition of instrumental music; only in recent years has musicological research begun bringing it to light once more, demonstrating that Naples also played a crucial role in the field of instrumental music, no less relevant than other centres more often associated with this repertory, such as Rome and Venice.
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Ensemble Aurora – On the Shoulders of Giants: Tracing the Roots of Counterpoint (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:14:28 minutes | 719 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
Enrico Gatti’s eighth recording for the Arcana label, and the debut album by his Ensemble Aurora in the role of string quartet, is without a doubt the most original of his discography. The result of years of research and discoveries, On The Shoulders of Giants is an exciting journey back to the roots of string quartet writing and counterpoint: from Renaissance tablatures to Mozart’s famous String Quartet in G major KV387, the first of the ‘Haydn’ Quartets, by way of Dario Castello, Johann Rosenmuller, Johann Sebastian Bach (the fourth counterpoint from The Art of Fugue) and the inevitable Corelli (Fuga a Quattro voci): a concentration of beautiful music, with a programme that encompasses different periods but with a clear main theme, which Enrico Gatti describes so well in his authoritative liner notes.
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Ensemble Arabesques – Jacques Ibert: Kammermusik (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:34 minutes | 913 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Farao Classics
In 2017, the Ensemble arabesques began realising its idea of devoting albums to composers with a special predilection for woodwind instruments. The series was launched with the highly successful CD Gustav Holst Kammermusik. This was followed in 2019 by works of Francis Poulenc. For the third album, Jacques Ibert was an obvious choice. As with Holst, the particular charm of Ibert’s works derives from the various combinations of woodwind and brass instruments, strings and harp that he uses.
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Ensemble Antiphona & Rolandas Muleika – Montigny: Grands Motets (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 54:51 minutes | 1005 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Paraty
“This Valette is one of the most stupendous geniuses we have and his music is stupendous too”. This is how the famed Sebastian de Brossard introduces his contemporary composer Joseph Valette de Montigny. Though acknowledged for its qualities, Montigny’s music has very rarely been played. Nor has it ever been recorded. Simply on account of its rarity and the absence of scores, it has remained unpublished. Thanks to this recording on which two great motets are performed, Antiphona Ensemble and its director Rolandas Muleïka are filling a vacuum. These motets are two outstanding pieces in Joseph de Montigny’s catalogue. Musicologist Benoît Michel, who died at a very young age, was the main instigator of this felicitous rediscovery: he would undoubtedly have felt enthusiastic about the release of this recording. This presentation draws to a large extent upon his work.
Details of original recording : Recorded in August 2019 at église Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, Toulouse (France)
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Ensemble Antiphona & Rolandas Muleika – L’Occitanie baroque de Pénitents Noirs (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:10:00 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Paraty Productions
The Villefranche de Rouergue’s ‘Pénitents Noirs’ (Black Penitents) treasure is also a ‘musical treasure’. It includes a collection of handwritten scores along with musical instruments – among which a remarkable serpent – which testify to the pomp of the great ceremonies and processions throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Long silenced but now restored thanks to the work of Jean-Christophe Maillard, the late Toulouse musicologist, and of the conductor Rolandas Muleika, the chosen motets have been given a new life.
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Ensemble Amarillis – Handel: Melodies in Mind (Suites & Trio Sonatas) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:16 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Evidence
When the ensemble Amarillis focuses on Handel, the musicians reinvent the genre of the baroque suite. They take advantage of their variable formation to concoct a joyous musical ballet in homage to the most Italian of the English composers. No voice here, and yet what lyricism in these pages!
Thanks to transcriptions that constantly renew the instrumentation of the program, the performers emphasize the colours of this contrasting and special anthology of Handel’s Suites and Trio Sonatas.
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Ensemble Amarillis – Bach & Telemann: Effervescence concertante (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:04 minutes | 977 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Evidence
“The idea of this program is to feature concertos for several ensemble instruments in a variety of sound combinations. For example, Telemann’s Concerto for flute and recorder is a response to Bach’s Concerto for violin and oboe. Telemann chooses the four-movement form, thereby recalling the old sonata da chiesa, whereas Bach adopts the three-movement form created by Vivaldi. The Concerto for harpsichord in F major BWV 1057 is a retranscription Bach himself made of his Fourth Brandenburg Concerto for a command performance in Leipzig. Like other composers of the baroque period, Bach saw no harm in recycling themes or even whole pieces, tweaking them as he wished. The personalities of both of these composers blossom fully with the concertante form. Although they adopt different structures, both show their mastery of the form… Justifiably, they have become true baroque music ‘hits’. For a present-day performer, these two figures are complementary. With the musicians of Amarillis, we wanted to bring out and enhance each one’s rhythmic élan, sensibility, and formal inventiveness. Both of them led us to surpass the limits of each instrument, making them resonate together and speak with the same eloquence. Let us hope that this effervescence, which carried us throughout this recording, is infectious!” Héloïse Gaillard
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Ensemble Altera Pars – Les Barbares Galantes (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:45 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Perfect Noise
The musical life in the late 18th century’s Russian metropolises still needs to be researched more extensively: With this recording, the musicians of the Altera Pars ensemble impressively demonstrate what masterpieces are waiting for their discovery. This album of works by George, Kerzelli, Facius and Haydn includes world premiere recordings.
The international ensemble “Altera Pars” (in English: Other Side) specialises in the performance of baroque and classical music. The musicians are leading soloists of European orchestras and play using period instruments. This allows for a variation of the line-up from 3 to 9 people and opens up a rich chamber repertoire from the 18th to the early 19th century. In the last four years, the ensemble initiated a much-praised series of concerts in the Oldenburg Palace.
Recorded in the beautiful acoustics of the Sendesaal Bremen.
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Ensemble Allegria, Maria Angelika Carlsen, Berit Cardas & Marthe Husum – Mozart, Schoenberg (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 58:19 minutes | 574 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Lawo Classics
Two young composers from what today is Austria are featured on this recording. The works, separated in time by 120 years, are contrasting in many respects — in form, mood and artistic aim. In music history we speak of several Viennese “schools”, and here the differences between them are obvious. They are similar only in wealth of imagination and quality.
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Ensemble Alia Mens & Olivier Spilmont – J. S. Bach: Weimar Cantatas (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:02 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Paraty Productions
The group of Weimar cantatas is exciting on many levels. The purpose Bach expressed in his Mühlhausen resignation letter – which became a master beam of the musical edice he built throughout his life – is expressed with an even more seminal vigour, due to the restrictions it suffered previously. Besides the beauty of the surviving works, which renders the loss of the missing ones all the more bitter, it is moving to see the musician engage, with each new piece, in experiments with form, ideas, and the language for expressing the word of God through the most sensitive possible texts. The choice of developing themes dear to him enabled him to afirm and deepen his faith.
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Ensemble Alerion – Lachrymarium (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 56:50 minutes | 969 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © SPEKTRAL
The ensemble Alerion consists of internationally trained and working singers: from Norway to Italy, from Hungary to France. The tear as a wondrous essence of human wistfulness inspires the Ensemble to an intensive engagement with elegiac Madrigal compositions of the Elizabethan age. Music of the deepest beauty becomes the sounding Lachrymarium.
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Ensemble Aedes, Les Siècles, Mathieu Romano – Fauré: Requiem – Poulenc: Figure Humaine – Debussy: 3 Chansons (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:19 minutes | 977 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Aparté
Fauré’s Requiem (‘funeral lullaby’) written for enjoyment, as the composer put it, has a unique place in history. Its soft, simple and modest poetry conveys moments of gentle contemplation and moving expressiveness which are entrusted to both the choir and the two soloists.
With his Ensemble Aedes and the orchestra Les Siècles, Mathieu Romano is committed to render a Requiem faithful to its first performance. We hear thus the score in its original 1893 orchestration, where the organ plays a great role and where Latin is pronounced in the French way as it used to be. The clearest articulation of the Ensemble Aedes then perfectly fits Éluard’s Figure humaine set to music by Francis Poulenc. We have never heard these sublime poems sung with such intelligibility before!
Finally, the three Songs by Debussy elegantly close the album. Here again, the quality and clarity of the voices are stunning. Artistic director and founder of Ensemble Aedes Mathieu Romano has established himself as a magician of voices in a cappella scores and voices ideally melt with the strings of Les Siècles under his baton.
A 100% French cast in a 100% French music disc for a triple rediscovery. Essential!”
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