Ciconia Consort – Slavic Rhapsody (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:54 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
The soul of Bohemia: familiar masterpieces and little-known gems for string ensemble by the five most famous Czech composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The affection and vigour of Dvorák’s Serenade for Strings has kept its freshness while many other works from the same era have receded into obscurity. This performance by the Ciconia Consort lends it a new lease of life: as rhythmically springy and attentive to detail as the ensembles previous, critically acclaimed explorations of the string-orchestra repertoire of France, England, the US and Germany in beautifully curated themes.
Janáček’s Suite for Strings is an early work, Romantic in character and recognisably descended from the String Serenades of Dvorák and Tchaikovsky, but nonetheless characteristic of the composer’s quirky language with its adoption of Czech speech rhythms. In 1931, Martinů was also inspired by Czech folk melodies when writing his Partita as a Czech émigré in faraway Paris. However, Martinů develops these melodies in a modern style reminiscent of Béla Bartók. Without slow movements, intimacy, or a poetic character, the character of the suite as a whole is spicy, tough and extrovert: inimitably Martinů.
![Ciconia Consort - Rheingold: Music by Reinecke, Wagner, Bruch & Silcher (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/02/20/jxv46254ypwcc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Ciconia Consort – Rheingold: Music by Reinecke, Wagner, Bruch & Silcher (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:35 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
Previous Brilliant Classics albums by this Dutch string orchestra, based in The Hague, have focused on late-Romantic American Pioneers and composers in early 20th-century Paris. Under their founder-director Dick van Gasteren, they now turn to the rich history of Rhineland music from the high-point of its immortalisation in operatic culture as the bedrock of Wagner’s Ring cycle.
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