Francesco Cera – J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846-893 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 04:35:11 minutes | 3,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Dynamic
Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier was written at a time when composers had begun to expand the limited tonal compass of keyboard instruments through far wider use of keys and, ultimately, equal temperament. The 48 preludes and fugues that constitute The Well-Tempered Claver are composed in a wide range of styles, and the work remains one of the most important and influential in Western classical music. Francesco Cera is a prominent Italian early music specialist and he plays on a copy of a Hemsch harpsichord of 1736, using his own personal tuning. For Book II he employs the Altnickol edition of the score which includes numerous variants.
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Riccardo Pisani, Ensemble Arte Musica & Francesco Cera – Rasi: La cetra di sette corde (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:07:47 minutes | 713 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
The first monographic recording entirely dedicated to Francesco Rasi is released for the 400th anniversary of his death (30 November 1621). The first interpreter of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, an astonishing tenor and poet with a life studded with triumphs, constant travels, debts and murders, this native of Arezzo was fought over by all the courts of Italy and Europe. The pieces, on texts by Petrarch, Guarini, Chiabrera and Rasi himself – including ten world premieres – are taken from the Vaghezze di Musica (1608) and the Madrigali (1610). Tenor soloist Riccardo Pisani explores their extraordinary poetic and musical power, in a kaleidoscope of affects divided into seven ‘strings of the lyre’. He is accompanied by the Ensemble Arte Musica, directed by harpsichordist Francesco Cera. The two artists have been collaborating for years on rediscovering the Italian vocal repertory of the seventeenth century, as witnessed by the recent success of their set of Frescobaldi CDs, released on Arcana.
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Francesco Cera – Frescobaldi: Toccate – Capricci – Fiori Musicali (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 08:12:52 minutes | 5,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
Girolamo Frescobaldi is one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of music for harpsichord and organ, and had an enormous influence on other composers up until Bach. His brilliant toccatas reveal an inner world that fascinates today’s listener. Frescobaldi’s inspiration was born at the court of Ferrara and reached maturity in Rome, where the composer found himself among the major artists of the time who were actively creating a new artistic language. The 7-CD box set includes the four collections by Frescobaldi which, due to their exceptional innovative strength, have left the greatest mark on the history of music for the keyboard. A pupil of Leonhardt and Tagliavini, Francesco Cera is today recognized as one of the leading specialists in Frescobaldi, whose music he has helped to disseminate through concerts and master classes in Europe and the United States. Part of the music was recorded in the excellent acoustics of the Sala della Vigna in the Delizia di Belriguardo, the summer residence of the Este dukes, where the very young Frescobaldi was often present. Cera has chosen nine priceless instruments, including the Guglielmi organ of 1615 in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome, and a copy of the harpsichord by Nicolò Albana, Naples 1584. The art historian Denis Grenier has been entrusted with the task of illustrating seven works of art that testify to the link between the music of Frescobaldi and the art in Rome of his time.
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