We may wonder whether the violin was a northern Italian invention, for the instrument was also to be heard in the great cities of southern Italy at an early stage, from the beginning of the 17th century onwards. Certain southern Italian composers had clearly understood that the instrument was unequalled in its ability to express emotion allied to virtuosity, including Montalbano in Palermo, Pandolfi in Messina, Falconieri and Trabaci in Naples, and Leoni in Rome. They wasted no time in channeling the freedom and expressivity of the violin into rare, fascinating and original works, some of them recorded here for the first time.
As the name suggests, a claviorganum is a keyboard instrument with a harpsichord and an organ section, which can be played individually or together on one or two manuals. While this instrument may seem like a curiosity today, many sources confirm that "curiosities" were rather the norm on the European continent from the 15th to the 17th century. There was a variety of different keyboard...
Songs by Henry Lawes sung together with preludes for the lute by John Wilson. Henry Lawes and John Wilson – friends and colleagues at Oxford, both members of the King’s Musick and both appointed to the Chapel Royal – make a beautiful pairing of musicians for this recording. Following the emotional thoughts of a young man, perhaps vainly in love with a woman beyond his social status, this...
The Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla, in collaboration with several universities, researches valuable repertoire linked to the history of Andalusia. This Proyecto Atalaya has already produced a series of CDs with unknown jewels, which have been released on Passacaille. On this new album called Astro Nuevo we can rediscover works by Pedro Rabassa (1683-1767). As a faithful musical partner of the...
Lorenzo Ghielmi performs the Leipzich ChoralesBWV 651–668, which are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade (1740–1750), from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The works form an encyclopaedic collection of large-scale chorale preludes, in a variety of styles harking back to the previous century, that Bach...
Artist(s):Elinor Frey, Suzie Leblanc, Lorenzo Ghielmi, Esteban La Rotta Composer:Angelo Maria Fiorè (1660-1723), Marc’Antonio Ziani, Carlo Monza, Paolo Magni (1650 ca. - 1737)
Brahms composed only a small number of original works for piano four hands, but arranged almost all of his chamber music and orchestral works for this instrumentation. He played most of them immediately after their completion with Clara Schumann and greatly appreciated her opinion. In his Hungarian Dances Brahms brilliantly transformed original Hungarian melodies and rhythms into multi-coloured...
Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater was extremely popular throughout Europe soon after it was composed in 1736. Countless printed and handwritten versions of this work, which was considered the stylistic ideal of sacred music in the 18th century, can be found in libraries all over the world. There are five manuscript copies of the Stabat Mater in the archives of Málaga Cathedral. This recording presents a...
Works by Johann Walter, Hans Buchner, Josquin Desprez, Nicolaus Cracoviensis, Heinrich Finck, Nicolaus Cracoviensis, Heinrich Isaac, Tylman Susato and from the Cracow Tablature, the Tablature of Joannes de Lyublyn, the Oldenburg Tablature, the Buxheim Organ Book and the Adam Ileborgh Tablature. In the German village of Rysum, in East Frisia, a precious instrument is preserved: an ancient organ,...
In 1959, two composers wrote nonets: Nino Rota’s melodic Nonetto, on which he would continue to work for almost 20 years, and Bohuslav Martinů’s farewell chamber music piece, a nonet, which he composed as a last piece to satisfy his longing for his homeland. Eisler did not compose his nonet in his native country either, but arrived in Mexico in 1941 as a refugee from the Nazis. There he wrote...
