With this CD, violinist Mayumi Hirasaki, who has been Concerto Köln’s concertmaster since 2011, explores the chameleon-like possibilities of her instrument: when playing with scordatura, instead of the usual fifths interval between the violin strings, an alternative is used in which at least one string is tuned to a different pitch. This results in completely new sonic and harmonic...
Without doubt, Benjamin Britten (1913-76) left an indelible impression on every genre of 20th century English music. However, it is his smaller scale vocal repertoire that is particularly fascinating. Featuring three of Britten’s “Canticles” as well as a selection of his best realizations (or “arrangements,” if you will) of songs by Henry Purcell (1659-95), this recording represents the mature...
With this disc, Swiss harpsichordist Michel Kiener presents his interpretation of the Goldberg Variations, one of Bach’s absolute masterpieces. Kiener completed both his piano and harpsichord studies at the Geneva Conservatoire, where he won the prize of virtuosity in both disciplines. He perfected his art with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam and was laureate of the Bruges International...
This recording presents 5 violin sonatas by Vivaldi that Pisendel took with him to Dresden after his stay in Venice. We know that Vivaldi wrote these extremely virtuoso sonatas for himself around 1710. The recording also presents a world première recording of a chamber concerto for violin and t movements for violin and basso continuo with cello concertato (RV 252 and RV 7a) which are also world...
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sei Solo for unaccompanied violin figure amongst the baroque works on which the performance traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries weigh most heavily. Rediscovered halfway through the 19th century after having been forgotten for more than a century, these works quickly entered the repertoire of works performed by violinists during the Romantic period: from that moment...
At the beginning of the 17th century, music in Italy underwent a radical change. From the first experimental attempts in Florence to revive the musical practice of Greek antiquity, which had not been handed down in detail, the genre of the monody developed, in which the singer could finally express all the nuances of the text (the "affects"), freed from the strict constraints of polyphony. To...
