Voces Suaves – Giaches de Wert: Versi d’Amore (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 59:46 minutes | 2,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
Following three critically acclaimed albums of sacred music, Voces Suaves turns to the most important secular genre of the Renaissance: the madrigal. Their new album for Arcana, Versi d’Amore , is dedicated entirely to the madrigals of Giaches de Wert (1535-1596): rarely performed nowadays, these expressive works are the true forebearers of the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi, Wert’s younger colleague in Mantua.
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Voces Suaves, Francesco Saverio Pedrini, Concerto Scirocco, Giulia Genini – Croce: Motetti & Sacrae Cantiones (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:22 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
Less famous—at least these days—than his colleague, “rival” and almost contemporary Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovanni Croce also worked in Venice, but wrote less in the sacred polychoral style and more in madrigals for four or five voices (often profane, carefree and happy) than Gabrieli. That being said, here’s some of his works for eight voices—often polychoral then—released in Venice in 1596 for the motets, and in 1605 for theSacrae Cantiones, testimonies of his consummate art of melody and harmony. By comparison, the ensembles Voces Suaves—vocal— and Concerto Scirocco—instrumental—have chosen to include some works from the two Gabrielis, Andrea and his nephew Giovanni, and also from Guami and Merulo, all tight contemporaries going from the middle of the XVIth century to the start of the next one. Cornets, sackbuts, viols, dulcians and organs (the one built in 1565 in the Church of Mantua, in which the album is recorded, for that matter) answer to the voices in the very rich and yet intimate acoustics of the place.
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Voces Suaves, Concerto Scirocco – Bernardi: Lux Æterna. Ein Salzburger Requiem (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:19 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
After rediscovering the music of Giovanni Croce, maestro di cappella at St Mark’s cathedral in Venice, Ensembles Voces Suaves and Concerto Scirocco take us to Salzburg and put the spotlight on the Verona-born composer Stefano Bernardi, a contemporary of Monteverdi. Bernardi reached the peak of his career in Salzburg, when he was appointed the first Kapellmeister of its newly constructed cathedral, a position he held from 1628 to 1634.
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Voces Suaves – Musicalische Exequien: German Funeral Music of the 17th Century (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:54 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
Johann Hermann Schein, Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle, Andreas Gleich, Johann Georg Ebeling, Johannes Kessel, Johann Rosenmüller – all names that are unlikely to be familiar to you, unless you happen to be especially knowledgeable on the subject of early German Baroque composers. Yet all enjoyed esteemed reputations in their day, and three of them – Schein, Knüpfer and Schelle – were actually predecessors of Johann Sebastian Bach in the lofty role of Leipzig ThomasKantor. Then even less familiar to most listeners will be the music these men composed for funeral services, because when each service’s music was created specifically for that one event, and reflected the tastes and choices of the deceased person it honoured, it didn’t make sense to publish it for wider performance.
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Voces Suaves – Come to My Garden – German Early Baroque Lovesongs (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:57 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical
The main composers presented here are Johann Hermann Schein and Melchior Franck, the essential representatives of early German baroque. Schein and Franck were almost exact contemporaries of each other, and developed their respective careers not fifty leagues apart – Coburg for Franck, Leipzig for Schein, who was, remember, a predecessor of Bach’s in the role of Cantor of Saint Thomas – but it seems they never met. It must be said that during the 30 Years’ War, journeys were not undertaken lightly, and people were much more concerned with not getting gutted, infected with the plague, or killed by starvation than they were with taking day-trips from town to town. It’s also startling that so many works have survived to the present day, including in particular the Hohelied Salomos from 1608 – the “Song of Solomon” by Franck, and Schein’s collection of Musica boscareggia dating from 1621/28 and the Diletti pastorali of 1628, including several love motets, presented here by Jörg-Andreas Bötticher’s instrumental and vocal ensemble Voces suaves. By way of historical reference point, we also here two pieces by Palestrina – after all, the German baroque was greatly influenced by the Italian madrigal – performed in their instrumental version as ornamented by two famous cornettists of the time, Luigi Zenobi and Antonio Bassiano, who have left us many examples of the art of musical variation and ornamentation as they practised it.
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