Michael Oman, Amandine Beyer, Austrian Baroque Company – London Calling (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Michael Oman, Amandine Beyer, Austrian Baroque Company – London Calling (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:28 minutes | 739 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fra Bernardo

This new release gives us a small impression of what was played for entertainment in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in the houses of London’s high society. The variety of the programme ranges from typical British melancholy to ostinato melodies by Nicola Matteis, an Italian violinist who, like Handel, who is also represented here, enriched the musical life on the Thames as a musical guest worker and Englishman of choice, to the exuberance of the ‘Ayres’. The famous baroque violinist Amandine Beyer and the recorder player Michael Oman are supported by the ABC – Austrian Baroque Company.

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Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti – Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti - Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti – Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:45:51 minutes | 1,96 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Whether we call them ‘Mystery’ or ‘Rosary’ Sonatas, these fifteen pieces, crowned by a sublime passacaglia for unaccompanied violin, form one of the greatest violinistic masterpieces of the Baroque repertory.This version, by Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti, derived from a dance project with the Rosas company, leads us into their magical universe through a novel prism: that of movement, to which these pieces are an infinite ode.
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Marco Ceccato, Gli incogniti & Amandine Beyer – Haydn: Concerti per Esterházy (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Marco Ceccato, Gli incogniti & Amandine Beyer – Haydn: Concerti per Esterházy (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 57:59 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Joseph Haydn spent much of his career as kapellmeister for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate in Hungary. This isolated him from other composers and trends in music to such an extent that Haydn said it, “forced him to become original.” He wrote many works specifically for the Esterházy orchestra, including the three concertos featured here. The Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 4 were written for Luigi Tomasini, the orchestra’s concertmaster, while the Cello Concerto No.1 was composed Joseph Franz Weigl, its principal cellist. It is fitting then that the principal players of Gli incogniti, leader Amandine Beyer and principal cellist Marco Ceccato, take the starring roles on this delightful recording of three Haydn masterworks.

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Gli Incogniti, Amandine Beyer – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8 & Other Concertos (Alpha Collection) (2008) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gli Incogniti, Amandine Beyer – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8 & Other Concertos (Alpha Collection) (2008)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:56 minutes | 1,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Director and violinist Amandine Beyer acknowledges in her booklet notes for this disc that the world may not seem to need another recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, but then she tops the bar she has set up by delivering an entirely distinctive reading of the work. Her version, with the Italian historical-instrument group Gli Incogniti (who are not quite as unknown as all that), is as strikingly revisionist as the various turbo-powered, operatic Vivaldi recordings that began coming out of Italy in the 1990s, but it is different in flavor. In her own words, Beyer seeks “lightweight forces and freedom of phrasing.” The group is small, with microphones put down right in the middle, and you hear lots of internal lines and interplay rather than contrast between orchestra and soloist. The overall feel is light and agile; Beyer doesn’t so much push the tempo (although there’s a little of that) as imbue the solo lines with maximum variety, creating a fantasy-like feel. That works quite well with the Four Seasons concertos, which are rendered in a colorful enough way that they evoke many of the images in Vivaldi’s accompanying printed sonnets (which would have been a profitable inclusion in the booklet). There are, however, enough startling choices, like the heavily plucked and much-faster-than-Largo central movement of the “Winter” concerto (track 18), that the disc may be more to the tastes of the adventurous than otherwise; sample extensively and decide. The Four Seasons are balanced with other concertos that are quite rare, two of them world premieres. One and possibly more of these works were written for Vivaldi’s orchestra of illegitimate girls at the Ospedale della Pietà, and indeed the entire disc is easy to imagine in performance by that presumably small group. The Violin Concerto in B flat major, RV 372, “Per Signora Chiara,” and Violin Concerto in B minor, RV 390, are late works that contribute anew to the understanding of how much Vivaldi contributed to the forerunners of Classicism. It may be a bit far out, but this is a fresh Vivaldi disc in every way.

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Gli Incogniti & Amandine Beyer – BWV… or not ? (Deluxe Edition) (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Gli Incogniti & Amandine Beyer – BWV… or not ? (Deluxe Edition) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:30:19 minutes | 1,69 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Bach (Johann Sebastian, that is) or not Bach? This is the question that the violinist Amandine Beyer and the ensemble Gli Incogniti asked themselves by seizing a handful of works long thought to be from the Kantor and that we now know to be from other composers—known, identified or not. Thus, the Sonata BWV 1024 may have “ended up” in Bach’s repertoire because a musicologist knew how to use the right scientific arguments (paper, copyists, geographical and historical contexts) to achieve his goal. The style of the composition, which admittedly is a bit reminiscent of Bach, cannot however quite fall in line with the musician’s writing style. Therefore, in order to avoid the sonata disappearing back into anonymity, it has now been attributed to Pisendel, rightly or wrongly. The Trio BWV 1036 is from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach—we were always quite sure of that, even if some less scrupulous releases have omitted the first name… The Trio BWV 1037 seems to be from Goldberg (the one from the Variations). The Suite in A major BWV 1025 is of somewhat ambiguous paternity, but it’s actually an arrangement Bach created for violin and harpsichord using the Suite SC 47 for lute that his friend and colleague Silvius Leopold Weiss composed. These are a few works that, after long being in the paradise of being attributed to Bach, are now in the hell of the “fake”, even if it’s not the fault of the composers that wrote them! What a pity…

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Amandine Beyer, Leila Schayegh, Matthias Spaeter, Jonathan Pesek, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher – Caldara: Trio Sonatas (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Amandine Beyer, Leila Schayegh, Matthias Spaeter, Jonathan Pesek, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher – Caldara: Trio Sonatas (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:46 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glossa

wo former students of the Schola Cantorum in Basel, both now captivating audiences each with their individual violinistic artistry, Amandine Beyer and Leila Schayegh, join forces for a new SCB recording devoted to the trio sonata music of Antonio Caldara, and issued with Glossa.

Though he is known now (as for much of his life) primarily as a composer of oratorios and operas, the Venetian Caldara made his name penning early examples of the trio sonata form; his Opp. 1 and 2 sets were published in 1693 and 1699 respectively. Caldara’s Op. 1 Trio Sonatas are characterized by their contrasting use of fast and slow movements, those from the second set by their incorporation of dances. Yet Caldara’s melodic gift – which was to serve him so well in his musical posts in various Italian states, in Barcelona, and as vice-Kapellmeister at the Imperial Court in Vienna – is already evident in Beyer and Schayegh’s selection from his instrumental publications; the composer was also already noted as a virtuoso of the cello – and he also played the violin and keyboard, and the awareness of all these instruments is greatly evident in these trio sonatas.

The continuo team here is made up of Jonathan Pesek, cello, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher, harpsichord and organ, and Matthias Spaeter, liuto attiorbato. Beyer and Schayegh both were taught at the SCB by Chiara Banchini and are continuing their connection with the school as teaching successors to Banchini.

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Amandine Beyer, Gli incogniti – Couperin: Apothéoses & autres Sonades (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Amandine Beyer, Gli incogniti – Couperin: Apothéoses & autres Sonades (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 57:32 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

The ensemble Gli incogniti, led by Amandine Beyer, makes their harmonia mundi début with this album of chamber music by François Couperin. When he published his two Apothéoses in memory of two great masters of music in 1724-25, François Couperin was asserting his desire to promote a meeting of the French and Italian styles – from a very Gallic point of view, naturally.

The idea was to convince the French Muses that henceforth one could say sonade and cantade in their language – a strategy already pursued in the much earlier La Sultane and La Superbe. But, far from blindly imitating his idols, Couperin takes inspiration from their styles and adapts them to his own brio.

The result is a delight for all to share with the musicians of Gli Incogniti and Amandine Beyer, whose first harmonia mundi recording this is.

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Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti – Vivaldi: “Il Mondo al rovescio” – Concerti con molti istromenti (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti - Vivaldi:

Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti – Vivaldi: “Il Mondo al rovescio” – Concerti con molti istromenti (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:32 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Vivaldi’s concerti con molti stromenti are true precursors of the symphony in their amplitude and audacity. In these pieces, the ‘Red-haired Priest’, a creator of boundless imagination, amused himself by devising literally unheard-of combinations of timbres. In the famous concerto Il Mondo al rovescio (The world upside down), he invited flutes, oboes and harpsichord to double violin and cello in a colourfl whirlwind of parallel octaves. This recording by Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti provides an opportunity to discover these incredibly modern compositions.
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Giuliano Carmignola, Amandine Beyer, Gli incogniti – Vivaldi: Concerti per due violini (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Giuliano Carmignola, Amandine Beyer, Gli incogniti – Vivaldi: Concerti per due violini (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:10:03 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Vivaldi’s double concertos resemble jousts: ‘the standards are raised, the bystanders comment, analyse, compare, speculate, the betting counter is open’, writes Olivier Fourés. But, he continues, the joust is not for real. It is ‘the stage of a theatre where two solitudes, within a group, meet up, then both size each other up and comfort each other’. There is bound to be comparison between the two protagonists, but in the end the triumph will be collective. And the least one can say is that Amandine Beyer and her illustrious guest Giuliano Carmignola have breathed new life into this dazzling form of musical theatre!

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Amandine Beyer, Leila Schayegh, Matthias Spaeter, Jonathan Pesek, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher – Caldara: Trio Sonatas (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Amandine Beyer, Leila Schayegh, Matthias Spaeter, Jonathan Pesek, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher – Caldara: Trio Sonatas (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:46 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glossa

Two former students of the Schola Cantorum in Basel, both now captivating audiences each with their individual violinistic artistry, Amandine Beyer and Leila Schayegh, join forces for a new SCB recording devoted to the trio sonata music of Antonio Caldara, and issued with Glossa.

Though he is known now (as for much of his life) primarily as a composer of oratorios and operas, the Venetian Caldara made his name penning early examples of the trio sonata form; his Opp. 1 and 2 sets were published in 1693 and 1699 respectively. Caldara’s Op. 1 Trio Sonatas are characterized by their contrasting use of fast and slow movements, those from the second set by their incorporation of dances. Yet Caldara’s melodic gift – which was to serve him so well in his musical posts in various Italian states, in Barcelona, and as vice-Kapellmeister at the Imperial Court in Vienna – is already evident in Beyer and Schayegh’s selection from his instrumental publications; the composer was also already noted as a virtuoso of the cello – and he also played the violin and keyboard, and the awareness of all these instruments is greatly evident in these trio sonatas.

The continuo team here is made up of Jonathan Pesek, cello, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher, harpsichord and organ, and Matthias Spaeter, liuto attiorbato. Beyer and Schayegh both were taught at the SCB by Chiara Banchini and are continuing their connection with the school as teaching successors to Banchini.

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Ensemble Gli Incogniti, Amandine Beyer – Antonio Vivaldi : Concerti ‘Nuova Stagione’ (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Ensemble Gli Incogniti, Amandine Beyer – Antonio Vivaldi : Concerti ‘Nuova Stagione’ (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:13:47 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zig-Zag Territoires

After a recording of The Four Seasons that was awarded several distinctions (ZZT080803), Amandine Beyer and her ensemble come back to Vivaldi with a selection of concerti.

Composer: Antonio Vivaldi
Conductor: Amandine Beyer
Orchestra/Ensemble: Gli Incogniti

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Gli Incogniti & Amandine Beyer – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8 & Other Concertos (2008/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gli Incogniti & Amandine Beyer – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8 & Other Concertos (2008/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:56 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha

The one-to-a-part Gli Incogniti offer a pliant, transparent texture, and soloist Amandine Beyer’s tone has an attractive brogue to it. Gramophone

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Amandine Beyer & Gli incogniti – C.P.E. Bach: “Beyond the Limits” Complete Symphonies for Strings and Continuo (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Amandine Beyer & Gli incogniti – C.P.E. Bach: “Beyond the Limits” Complete Symphonies for Strings and Continuo (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:11 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

With these six symphonies dedicated to Baron van Swieten, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach demonstrated his talent for instrumental and expressive genius. Entirely devoid of sentimentality and gratuitous extravagance, they open the doors to both Viennese Classicism and its immediate successor: Romanticism. It was only natural that, after tackling Haydn and the Esterházy princes, Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti should investigate this repertoire in which, once again, aristocratic patronage lies at the heart of musical creation.

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Amandine Beyer – J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas BWV 1001-1006 (2011) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Amandine Beyer – J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas BWV 1001-1006 (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:31:32 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zig-Zag Territoires

After The Four Seasons, the Bach violin concertos, and the sonatas of Matteis, Amandine Beyer presents her vision of the Sonatas and Partitas, one of the pillars of the repertoire, coupled with the solo sonata of Pisendel, the best-known German violinist of his generation, who met Bach at Weimar.

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