Capella de la Torre

Capella de la Torre – Capriccio Pastorale (Italian Christmas Music) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 23, 2023 · Comments off

On its new album, Katharina Bäuml’s highly acclaimed ensemble Capella de la Torre, which has just been awarded the OPUS Klassik, invites you to a special musical Christmas in Italy. As was the tradition in Renaissance Italy, a colorful mixture of different styles and moods can be heard. Wonderful secular and sacred, joyful and festive as well as instrumental and vocal music alternate.

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Capella de la Torre – Monteverdi – Erinnerungen (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 4, 2023 · Comments off

Claudio Monteverdi has given music history a number of musical ideas that continue to have an impact to this day – ostinate basses such as the “walking bass”, the Ciaccona or the lamento bass with its four descending tones, dramatic lamentations such as the Lamento d’Arianna, heaped dissonances such as at the end of the Ballo delle ingrate, which sometimes straddle the boundaries of the atonal.

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RIAS Kammerchor, Capella de la Torre & Katharina Bäuml – Praetorius and Italy (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 21, 2023 · Comments off

Michael Praetorius in the Context of his Italian Contemporaries: Michael Praetorius was anything but a cosmopolitan, rather he lived and worked within a manageable radius of the German-speaking area. And yet he had access to scores from French, English, and above all Italian sources, which he studied with great zeal. A detailed description of the different national styles can be found in the third volume of his “Syntagma musicum”. If you take a closer look at the works of Praetorius‘, you will find Italian influences, role models or dialogue with contemporary composers from the south almost everywhere. There is no evidence that Praetorius ever traveled to Italy, the sources known today speak against it – and yet it seems as if the composer had a lifelong longing for Italy, perhaps even a dream? On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the death of Michael Praetorius, the RIAS Chamber Choir and the Capella de la Torre are putting together a program that will follow this Italian trail that will run like a red thread through the concert: Which composers does Michael Praetorius particularly appreciate, and in what way have stylistic features from Italy been incorporated into his own works? The program will juxtapose works by Praetorius with works by Agostino Agazzari, Antorio Cifra and others. In the concert, all facets of composing from this time should be linked with one another. Large-scale, multi-choir works alternate with intimate forms such as the sacred concert for solo voices and paint a wide-ranging picture of the musical diversity of the early 17th century. In addition to the vocal timbres, the Capella de la Torre under its director Katharina Bäuml uses the entire palette of instrumental colors from reed instruments (shawm, pomeranian, dulcian to large bass pommeric), brass (trombones, cornetti), string instruments (violins, viols) as well as organs and Present lutes for basso continuo.

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Capella de la Torre – Francesco Cavalli: Transitions (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · April 28, 2023 · Comments off

In 1675, the Italian Francesco Cavalli was at the peak of his fame. His approximately 40 operas have become an integral part of Venice’s repertoire. And the French sun king had danced to Cavalli’s music. But in that year 1675, the former pupil of Monteverdi felt that he probably would not have long to live. So he composed his own “Mass for the Dead”, which was to be performed twice a year in his memory. This “Requiem” was first heard in Cavalli’s year of death in 1676. And this “Missa pro defunctis” was still admired in the 19th century. Thus, this sacred opus Magnum was even put on a par with Mozart’s “Requiem” in terms of its spiritual power. This masterpiece of sacred Baroque music is now the focus of the new album “TRANSITIONS” by the Capella de la Torre. Under the direction of ensemble founder Katharina Bäuml, the award-winning early music ensemble presents Cavalli’s Requiem in a special version, because Katharina Bäuml expanded the ensemble by significantly more instruments in order to produce a balanced mixture of singing voices and instruments, especially wind instruments. Even if Francesco Cavalli did not provide any obligatory instruments in his requiem and the instrumental accompaniment is limited to the Basso continuo according to the score, it can be assumed that string and wind instruments were already involved in the first performances of the work. The instruments have either amplified or completely replaced certain vocal sections. In the present recording, the Capella de la Torre takes up this practice, with the instruments of the city plovers (the piffari) with shawm, Pomeranian and trombones playing an essential role. The fusion of the human and instrumental voices in Cavalli’s “Opus ultimum” results in a distinctive and deeply emotional sound impression. In this combination Cavalli’s music can be heard for the first time on this recording. And on the album, the individual parts of the requiem can be heard in a charming combination with other vocal and instrumental works by contemporaries of Cavalli, works by Maurizio Cazzati, Giovanni Bassano and other composers from the Venetian environment, which Katharina Bäuml has virtually incorporated into the requiem.

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Capella De La Torre, Chorwerk Ruhr & Florian Helgath – Bodenschätze (Motetten aus dem 17. Jahrhundert) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 4, 2022 · Comments off

Capella De La Torre, Chorwerk Ruhr & Florian Helgath – Bodenschätze (Motetten aus dem 17. Jahrhundert) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:31 minutes | 1,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Coviello Classics

The great “composer of the millennium” Johann Sebastian Bach stands like a solitary rock in the landscape of music history. There is less talk about where he came from and what influenced him stylistically. Chorwerk Ruhr embarked on a search for clues with highly interesting results: the young Johann Sebastian also listened to and studied works that were already around 100 years old. In any case, during his later years as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, he ensured that the collection of motets Florilegium selectissimarum Cantionum was purchased anew – it was used so frequently in lessons under his aegis that the music material was completely worn out. The collection by the early Baroque master and school cantor Erhard Bodenschatz, first published in 1603, illustrates the then new compositional technique of the Baroque in a clearly comprehensible way in songs mostly by German or Italian masters.

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Capella de la Torre & Katharina Bäuml – Praetorius dances (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 4, 2022 · Comments off

A glance at the art of the courtly dance in bygone times reveals various trends, some of which overlap, while others compete with one another. And in a third group of cases there may also be an exchange of ideas. It all depends on what is central to our enquiry: the period, the country of origin or the individual courts, with their separate spheres of influence. Among the elements that characterize these trends are the steps, the sequence of steps, the principles underpinning the dancers’ movements and the figures traced out within the space in question. The inspiration for more and more new combinations of steps to create new dances stemmed from the diplomatic exchanges between individual courts, sometimes in those instances when a young new ruler brought her parents’ dancing master with her from her former court to the new centre of her activities.

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Capella de la Torre – Vidi Speciosam: A Lady Mass from the 16th Century (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 4, 2022 · Comments off

The present recording reconstructs the sound of a Marian Mass in a Spanish convent towards the end of the 16th century: plainchant performed by women’s voices alternates with polyphonic works featuring a combination of women’s voices and instruments, together with a number of instrumental movements.

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Capella de la Torre – Soundscape – Leonardo da Vinci (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 4, 2022 · Comments off

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) gilt als eines der größten Universalgenies der Menschheitsgeschichte. Der Schöpfer der Mona Lisa war nicht nur Maler, sondern auch Bildhauer, Architekt, Anatom, Mechaniker, Ingenieur und Naturphilosoph. Da Vinci beschäftigte sich auch mit Musik, entwickelte Musikinstrumente und komponierte. Am Hofe seines Dienstherren Ludovico Sforza etwa war da Vinci 1490 maßgeblich an den Planungen umfangreicher Festlichkeiten anlässlich der Hochzeit des jungen Herzogs Gian Galeazzo mit Isabella von Aragon beteiligt und inszenierte mit »Il Paradiso« dafür auch musikalische Auftritte ganz nach dem Geschmack der Zeit. Die Zeit Leonardo da Vincis lässt die Capella de la Torre unter der Leitung von Katharina Bäuml mit ihrem Album »Soundscape – Leonardo da Vinci« lebendig werden. Ausgewählt wurde Musik von Zeitgenossen wie Bartolomeo Tromboncino, Josquin des Prez und Heinrich Isaac: Tanz- und Liedsätze, vielfach sogenannte »Frottolas«, eine Musikgattung, die zu da Vincis Zeit an den oberitalienischen Fürstenhöfen entwickelt worden war, aber auch die sogenannte »Battaglia«, die mit ihren lautmalerischen Imitationen von Militärsignalen und Schlachtenklängen in jener Zeit besonders beliebt waren. Deren Aufnahme in das vorliegende Programm soll daran erinnern, dass da Vinci auch als Festungsbaumeister tätig war, eine Reihe von Kriegsmaschinen entworfen hat und zudem an Schlachtengemälden arbeitete. Zudem ist mit »Amore sola mi fa remirare« auch ein Originalstück da Vincis zu hören. Ein Album voll hörenswerter Entdeckungen!

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Capella de la Torre – Air Music (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 4, 2022 · Comments off

Das dritte Album des erfolgreichen Elemente-Zyklus Die Capella de la Torre gilt als »eines der produktivsten und kreativsten Renaissance-Ensembles« (rbb Kulturradio) unserer Zeit. Für ihre Aufnahmen bei deutsche harmonia mundi wurden die Musiker um Leiterin Katharina Bäuml mit zahlreichen Preisen in aller Welt ausgezeichnet – u. a. mit einem Opus Klassik für die Aufnahme »Una Serata Venexiana« sowie einem ECHO Klassik als »Ensemble des Jahres« für ihr erstes »Elemente«-Album »Wasser Musik«. Auch das zweite Album der Reihe »Feuer Musik« erhielt fantastische Besprechungen. Jetzt setzt die Capella de la Torre ihre musikalische Beschäftigung mit den »Vier Elementen« mit dem Album »Luft Musik« fort.

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Capella de la Torre, Katharina Bäuml – Monteverdi: Memories (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 16, 2022 · Comments off

“When Renaissance music grooves” is how Deutschlandfunk describes the music of Capella de la Torre under the direction of Katharina Bäuml. The ensemble, which has received many awards at home and abroad, also proves this with its new album “Monterverdi Memories”.

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