Nicolas Achten

Scherzi Musicali, Nicolas Achten – Sances: Dialoghi Amorosi (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:51 minutes | 1,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar

Giovanni Felice Sances published his collections of cantade in Venice around 1640. Their music, poetic, lively, rhythmic and sensual, is placed at the service of a rich palette of amorous sentiments: innocence, desire, seduction, jealousy and despair all make their appearance. Sances also left us a number of ‘amorous dialogues’, miniature operas depicting Ruggiero and Angelica (who, to safeguard her virginity, makes herself invisible and flees the doughty knight who has just saved her from a monster’s clutches) and the naughty frolics of Tirsi and Filli, who want at all costs to ‘die’ together.

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Scherzi Musicali & Nicolas Achten – Bertali: La Maddalena (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:07:48 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar

Through the combination of sacred and profane that she embodies, the profoundly human personality of Mary Magdalene greatly inspired artists of the Baroque era, whether painters, poets or composers. It was in the sphere of influence of Italian oratorios, highly prized at the court of Vienna, that Antonio Bertali devoted a most moving sepolcro to her in 1663, a genre traditionally played during Holy Week. In 1617, in Mantua, it was in the form of theatrical interludes that she was honoured by court composers such as Salomone Rossi, Muzio Effrem and Claudio Monteverdi, who wrote the prologue for this other Maddalena.

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Scherzi Musicali and Nicolas Achten – Jean-Noël Hamal: Motets (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:08:34 minutes | 2,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Musique en Wallonie

Jean-Noël Hamal’s musical language is a perfect reflection of this transitional period in which the Baroque galant style merges into the classical style. One senses in Hamal’s music a communicative vitality, a charmingly poetic note, a keen sense of elegant melody and a theatricality in dynamic contrasts which in some ways evokes the Mannheim school. As soon as he was able, he exploited the ample space available by writing works for two choirs and two orchestras. He seems also to have had a very pronounced preference for major tonalities (he even went so far as to write an astonishingly cheerful Dies irae in C major) and for very readable harmonies, although these sometimes risk being too predictable or conventional. But he was also capable of being a visionary: by their tripartite structure and the autonomous form his symphonies make him a precursor of the classical symphony. He is equally capable of entirely unexpected surprises and attractive details, as is apparent in his motets delivered respecting the practices then in force in Liège by Nicolas Achten and Scherzi Musicali ensemble, mixing subtlety and theatricality.

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Scherzi Musicali & Nicolas Achten – Colonna: O splendida dies (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:39 minutes | 2,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar

Giovanni Battista Colonna (1637-95) spent most of his career in Bologna as maestro di cappella of the basilica of San Petronio. Since he had at his disposal this imposing building with its two choir organs, well known to lovers of the instrument, and its very generous acoustics, Colonna wrote a large number of sacred compositions for imposing vocal and instrumental forces. But, in a more intimate vein, he also devoted two collections to the repertory of ‘small motets’. The pieces recorded here come from the 1681 set of Motetti a due e tre voci (1681). They display a wide variety of formulas, combining traditional elements and innovative aspects that were to be further developed in the following generations. These gems are highly representative of the style of small motets that heralds the stile concertante. They are characterised by various combinations of voices (from solo recitative to a mixture of vocal duets or trios in different scorings) and a broad range of formal structures bound up with the very nature of the texts.

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Scherzi Musicali, Nicolas Achten – Il Pianto d’Orfeo – The Birth of Opera (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:15:47 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © deutsche harmonia mundi

This album retraces the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, comparing and contrasting different interpretations by major composers of the 16th century, including Monteverdi, Rossi and Caccini. Baritone, harpsichordist, lutenist, harpist and artistic director, Nicolas Achten is the rising figure in the world of early music. He is one of the few classical singers to accompany himself on various instruments, reviving this historical practice. Born in Brussels in 1985, he studied singing, lute, harpsichord and triple harp at the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and the Hague, and completed his training at various masterclasses, including the Académie baroque d’Ambronay and the Centre de la Voix de Royaumont.

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Scherzi Musicali & Nicolas Achten – Charles-Joseph Van Helmont: Leçons de ténèbres (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:11:25 minutes | 2,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar

Charles-Joseph Van Helmont played a leading role in music in Brussels during the Baroque period. In 1737 he followed in the footsteps of Joseph-Hector Fiocco and composed a cycle of nine Leçons de ténèbres for solo voice and continuo.

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