Daniel Reuss

Susanne Van Els, Cappella Amsterdam, MusikFabrik, Daniel Reuss – Ligeti: Lux aeterna (2007) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 2, 2023 · Comments off

Both Ligeti and Heppener belong to the generation born in the 1920s which formed the basis for the post-war avant-garde. ‘Lux Aeterna’, used by Stanley Kubrick in his film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, marked the installation of a new musical language. The later ‘Sonata for solo viola’ simultaneously evokes the polyphony of the 14th century and certain varieties of ethnic music. ‘Im Gestein’, a cycle of lieder to poems by Paul Celan which won Heppener the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize in 1993, was here recorded for the first time in 2008.

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Michael Villmow, Cappella Amsterdam & Daniel Reuss – Da Pacem (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 5, 2023 · Comments off

At the Orgelpark in Amsterdam are running the rehearsals and recordings sessions of the CD-project “Da Pacem” with Cappella Amsterdam conducted by Daniel Reuss. The soloists Bendik Hofseth (saxophoe) and Hans-Kristian Kjos Sorensen (percussion) as well as organ player David Jansen and second percussionist Frederik Villmow complete the ensemble. The pieces which will be recorded are “Da Pacem, “Ein Stern”, “O Nacht” and “Lux Aeterna” by Michael Villmow. Sound engineer is Florian Schmidt and his company PEGASUS from Berlin.

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Cappella Amsterdam, Holland Baroque, Daniel Reuss – Missa Sancti Georgii (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 1, 2023 · Comments off

Herman Finkers releases new album Missa Sancti Georgii. Herman Finkers has rearranged and re-recorded his St. George Mass with Cappella Amsterdam, Holland Baroque, and Wishful Singing. Herman Finkers composed a Latin mass, the Missa In Honorem Sancti Georgii, or Saint George’s Mass, on the occasion of his wedding blessing on 15 June 1990, still without a Credo.

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Cappella Amsterdam & Daniel Reuss – Schnittke: Psalms of Repentance (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 13, 2023 · Comments off

Cappella Amsterdam and its artistic leader Daniel Reuss present their third Pentatone album with a recording of Alfred Schnittke’s Psalms of Repentance. Schnittke composed the piece in 1988 to commemorate the Christianisation of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in 1988, and based it on anonymous Russian texts from the 16th century about guilt and repentance. It is one of the most impressive large-scale works for a cappella choir written in the twentieth century, setting intensely emotional texts to equally expressive music, and approaching centuries-old Orthodox musical traditions through the lens of late twentieth-century music. This recording uses the original manuscript, which differs in multiple ways from the published score, resulting in an interpretation that aims to be closer to the composer’s intentions.

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Daniel Reuss & Cappella Amsterdam – Lassus: Inferno (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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

Though Orlande de Lassus displays overflowing vitality in his secular music, matters are quite different in his sacred music: the twelve motets assembled on this album (most of them composed in the last years of his life) bespeak a profound melancholy and show not only his ability to make use of a wide range of stylistic devices, but also great subtlety in the art of rhetoric. An expressive palette handled in masterly fashion by Daniel Reuss at the head of Cappella Amsterdam!

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Carolyn Sampson, Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss – Poulenc: Stabat Mater (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 6, 2022 · Comments off

Poulenc’s „Stabat Mater“, which he described as a „requiem without despair“, was written in 1950 following the death of Christian Bérard who designed the sets for Cocteau’s films and plays and was a leading figure of 1940s Paris. This masterly work, dedicated to the Virgin of Rocamadour, gives pride of place to the chorus and clearly shows its line of descent from the French grands motets. On completing it, Poulenc wrote to Pierre Bernac: ‘It’s good, because it’s completely authentic’.

From the time of his pilgrimage to Rocamadour in 1936, Poulenc’s religious output was filtered through his Catholic interpretation of the world and his personal trajectory. The ‘Stabat Mater’ is no exception to this rule, in that it associates the events and circumstances of his own life with the drama of the Gospels. It identifies the three figures of Christ, the Virgin and the Faithful Disciple with biographical figures: Bérard, Poulenc, and the latter’s lover Lucien Roubert, whom he was to refer to as ‘the secret’ of the ‘Stabat Mater’ and ‘Dialogues des Carmélites’.

In December 1959 Leonard Bernstein commissioned a new work from Poulenc for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He chose to write the ‘Sept Répons des Ténèbres’ (Seven Tenebrae Responses) for treble soloist, a chorus of boys’ and men’s voices and symphony orchestra. The posthumous first performance took place on 11 April 1963 at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) under the direction of Thomas Schippers. Poulenc had insisted on these all-male vocal forces, but, 50 years after his death, it is important to allow for more widespread performance of this fascinating score which has too long languished in the shadows.

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Cappella Amsterdam & Daniel Reuss – Josquin des Prez: Miserere mei Deus (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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

This fine work from the Capella Amsterdam led by Daniel Reuss begins and ends with a lament: one to Ockeghem by Josquin around 1497, and one for Josquin by Gombert in 1521. These two requiems bookend an impressive range of religious motets by Josquin (in particular funeral motets) which mix Latin and French lyrics and religious lines and songs, invoking sylphs, nymphs and muses. “Nymphes des bois, déesses des fontaines” [Nymphs of the woods, goddesses of the fountains], wrote Jean Molinet in his epitaph to Master Jean Ockgam, “changez vos vois cleres et haultaines / En cris trenchantz et lamentations; Acoutrez vous d’abitz de deuil: Josquin, Pierchon, Brumel, Compere, Et plorez grosses larmes d’œil: Perdu avez vostre bon Pere” [change your clear and proud voices/ Into piercing cries and lamentations; Put on your mourning garb: Josquin, Pierchon, Brumel, Compere, And cry great tears: you have lost your good father] – it is clear that Josquin made use of these lines in his motet. The attentive listener will notice that the composer often introduces Gregorian cantus firmus into the middle of the song, embroidering it with a rich melodic and harmonic tissue (in French) and freeing it of all constraints. This is the sound of the great Renaissance motet being born.

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Cappella Amsterdam & Daniel Reuss – In umbra mortis (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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

Cappella Amsterdam and its artistic leader Daniel Reuss make their Pentatone debut with “In umbra mortis”. The album brings together Wolfgang Rihm’s contemporary Sieben Passions-Stücke and Passion-related Motets by the Flemish 16th-century polyphonist Giaches de Wert, revealing unexpected kinship between two composers four centuries apart. By entwining the old and new, the listener is invited on a chromatic journey of astonishing beauty.

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Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss – Brahms: Choral Works (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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

Daniel Reuss and his Cappella Amsterdam are focussing on Brahms’ later choral works with this album. The famous German Requiem must not be allowed to overshadow the wide variety of choral music Brahms wrote throughout his career. Daniel Reuss and his Cappella Amsterdam are our expert guides in a programme that takes in sacred a cappella motets by turns austere (opp.74 and 110) and resplendent (op.109), secular quartets with piano (opp.92 and 112), and songs for six-part unaccompanied chorus (op.104).

The crowning glory is a dramatic masterpiece for chorus and four-hand piano, the Song of Destiny after Hölderlin.

The influence of renaissance composers, but above all Heinrich Schütz on Brahm’s style can be heard clearly on this recording. Apart from the by turns austere and resplendent motets, like the famous Warum ist das Licht gegeben dem Muhseligen?, also secular works such as Schicksalslied in a version for choir and piano has been recorded, accompanied by Philip Mayers and Angela Gassenhuber. This cd lights out a lesser know side of Brahms with works that have the same quality as his famous symphonies.

The choir’s chief conductor and artistic leader Daniel Reuss about the recording: “It’s a dream to have been able to record these works, which I have already been performing for thirty years. With this recording we want to listener to experience Brahms’ strictness, as well as his warmth, in all simplicity.”

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Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss – Arvo Pärt: Kanon Pokajanen (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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

„Cappella Amsterdam has performed something extraordinary!“ – Leidsch Dagblad wrote after the performance of Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen in 2015. The minimal side of his music places Pärt in a kind of meditative scope of composers who arouse deep emotions via slow movements and soft intensity.

The extensive Penitential Psalms for fourpart choir a cappella is a deeply religious question for forgiveness, written in Church Slavic. ‘Inspired conductor and musicians, who interpret Pärt’s music beautifully’, one of the 160 fans wrote who donated to enable the production of a cd with this music.

Pärt’s modern sacral music is balm for the soul and very popular, not only amongst singers. In this concert we are singing parts of his Kanon Pokajanen that is seldomly performed outside Estonia. The text of these Penitential Psalms is close to Pärts heart: “When I first came in contact with the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church I stumbled upon a text that made a great impression on me, even though I did not understand it then. It were the Penitential Psalms. Since then I have read and reread these verses, slowly and dedicatedly searching for their meaning.”

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Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Daniel Reuss, Athena Poullos, Lucie Chartin, Marianne Beate Kielland, Thomas Walker, Christophe Balissat, Ensemble Vocal De Lausanne – Honegger: Le Roi David (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Daniel Reuss, Athena Poullos, Lucie Chartin, Marianne Beate Kielland, Thomas Walker, Christophe Balissat, Ensemble Vocal De Lausanne – Honegger: Le Roi David (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:35 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mirare

With Le Roi David, written when he was less than 30 years old, Honegger produced one of his first great masterpieces. In 27 numbers overflowing with astonishing musical invention, the oratorio brilliantly recreates a distant biblical past in a resolutely modern language. It enjoyed immediate and lasting popular success.

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Cappella Amsterdam & Daniel Reuss – David Lang: The Writings (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

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

Cappella Amsterdam and its artistic director Daniel Reuss return to PENTATONE with a world premiere recording of David Lang’s the writings. For this cycle, Lang has selected five texts from the Old Testament associated with Jewish holidays. These texts have universal appeal and deal with the question of what it means to be human. Lang’s simple and repetitive score creates a deep emotional impact that fully matches the poetry of the recited themes. The album includes insightful program notes by the composer as well as a thought-provoking analysis by his esteemed colleague Nico Muhly.

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