Thomas Hobbs, Romina Lischka, Sofie Vanden Eynde – Orpheus’ Noble Strings (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Thomas Hobbs, Romina Lischka, Sofie Vanden Eynde – Orpheus’ Noble Strings (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:10 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Paraty Productions

Orpheus and his lyre: how to better picture the power of music? Orpheus could move stones to tears, he even moved to pity the gates of death. Music overturns the world, this the composers of the English Renaissance knew very well. Even more, music is the soul of the world, a unifying force. Thomas Hobbs celebrates the many facets of music in lutesongs, in particular those of by T. Campion and J. Danyel. It is not solely the lute which accompanies the song, but also less frequently heard instruments such as the lyra viol, the bandora, the orpharion. With their generous strings, these instruments bring to the ears the sound of Orpheus’ magical lyre.

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Romina Lischka & Marnix De Cat – Bach for Two (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Romina Lischka & Marnix De Cat – Bach for Two (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:27 minutes | 1,45 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée

Johann Sebastian Bach left us three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. He made various transcriptions of the gamba sonata in G major, one of which was of the last movement as a trio sonata for organ. Several movements of the six organ trio sonatas themselves are also reworkings of previously composed material from his cantatas, organ and chamber works.

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Romina Lischka, Sofie Vanden Eynde – Marais, de Visée & Sainte Colombe: En Suite (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Romina Lischka, Sofie Vanden Eynde – Marais, de Visée & Sainte Colombe: En Suite (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:12:25 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Paraty

The viola da gamba and the theorbo are string nobility: an artistic duo embodying the height of grandeur and sophistication. Indeed, the sense of intimacy that can arise between the two in French baroque repertoire provided the impetus for this recording. Though different in appearance and technique —one is bowed, the other plucked — both instruments have more in common than might at first seem.
The viola da gamba’s finest hour, however, both in terms of composition and performance, was undoubtedly the result of the work of one man, Marin Marais (1656-1728). It is of course possible to hear echoes, in Marais’ eccentric style of performance and composition, of his beloved and inspiring teacher Sainte Colombe (c. 1658–1701), about whose life and career we sadly know very little. It was however Sainte Colombe who pioneered the technical innovations needed to make expressive and virtuosic solo performance on the bass viol possible, e.g. by introducing silver-wound strings, which produced a more clearly defined sound. He also added an extra bass string and modified playing technique to allow the left hand to move more freely. Marin Marais’ haunting instrumental lament ‘Tombeau de Ste Colombe’ is a pupil’s enduring testament in honour of his master.

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Hathor Consort & Romina Lischka – Ferrabosco II: The Art Of Fantasy (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Hathor Consort & Romina Lischka – Ferrabosco II: The Art Of Fantasy (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:30 minutes | 1,49 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée

Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger, viol player at the court of Elizabeth I and Charles I, was the most innovative and influential composer of viol consort music of his generation. Following the steps of his father, composer Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder, he continued the specifically English « In Nomine » tradition for viol consort into the seventeenth century while adding his own special touch in the « In Nomine through all parts » in using the cantus firmus in all voices with various rhythms and transpositions. His greatest achievement was the development of an imitative counterpoint perfectly adapted to the viol. The particular character of Ferrabosco’s music was determined by his love for architecture and symmetrical forms which were integrated in all possible ways into his Fantasies: flexible motives, augmentations and diminutions of themes and a clear harmonic structure.

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Dorothee Mields, Hathor Consort & Romina Lischka – Heinrich Albert’s Pumpkin Hut (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Dorothee Mields, Hathor Consort & Romina Lischka – Heinrich Albert’s Pumpkin Hut (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:17 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée

Königsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) was a rare haven of peace during the Thirty Years’ War thanks to its geographical location. Many people, including artists and musicians, fled there from the horrors of plague and war. Heinrich Albert, a pupil of Heinrich Schütz (his cousin) and Johann Hermann Schein, the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, was appointed cathedral organist in the city in 1630. His garden hut, overgrown with pumpkin vines and suitably dubbed the ‘pumpkin hut’ (Kürbishütte), became the meeting place of the Königsberg Circle of Poets: a refuge and a space for cutting-edge creativity, spared from direct involvement in the war.

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Pluto-Ensemble, Marnix De Cat, Hathor Consort, Romina Lischka – John Coprario Parrot or Ingenious Parodist (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Pluto-Ensemble, Marnix De Cat, Hathor Consort, Romina Lischka – John Coprario Parrot or Ingenious Parodist (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:09 minutes | 952 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée

Was John Coprario taking credit for someone else’s work when, under his own name, he made transcriptions of more than fifty Italian madrigals for a consort of viols? Such an accusation would be based on false premises, as anything resembling copyright was unknown at the beginning of the seventeenth century and for long afterwards; the use of musical material by someone else was rather considered as a respectful examination of ideas that were so promising that one wanted to think them through further. When transcribing these Italian madrigals, Coprario was not only extending an established tradition but also transcending it. He did not simply omit the text in his madrigal fantasias as had been customary in the 16th century, but also took the polyphonic setting even further, enriching it with instrumental possibilities that voices alone could not match. He also rearranged certain parts so that the original vocal work is not always immediately recognisable. Coprario, besides being one of the first to give ensemble music an instrumental identity, was no musical parrot, but an ingenious parodist.

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Uday Bhawalkar, Hathor Consort, Romina Lischka – Dhrupad Fantasia (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Uday Bhawalkar, Hathor Consort, Romina Lischka - Dhrupad Fantasia (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Uday Bhawalkar, Hathor Consort, Romina Lischka – Dhrupad Fantasia (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:15 minutes | 1,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fuga Libera

Dhrupad is the oldest and purest genre within the North Indian classical music and can trace its origins to the recitation of Sanskrit texts in Hindu temples more than two thousand years ago. Dhrupad reached the Mughal courts in Rajasthan in the 16th century, where it developed into a classical art form. Dhrupad Fantasia is a meeting of the court music of Queen Elizabeth I of England with that of the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great; both monarchs reigned from about 1550 until 1600. Romina Lischka has created a wondrous fantasy in which the modality of Indian ragas is interwoven with the polyphony of Elizabeth I’s England. She, the Hathor Consort and dhrupad vocalist Uday Bhawalkar have created an imaginary world by combining improvisations based on modal ragas and polyphonic instrumental music, both of which originated in the art music of the aforementioned courts.
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