L'Arpeggiata / Christina Pluhar HIMMELMUSIK

Himmelsmusik (‘heavenly music’), a programme of sacred songs and cantatas by German composers of the 17th century, presents a striking contrast with the previous Erato album from Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata: Händel Goes Wild. 

Himmelsmusik sees Pluhar taking a more sober and traditionally scholarly approach. She and L’Arpeggiata are joined by star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and the distinguished Belgian soprano Céline Scheen in a programme that includes the celebrated lamento ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte’ by Johann Christoph Bach (born over 40 years before his relative Johann Sebastian), Heinrich Schütz’s ‘Erbarm Dich mein, o Herre Gott’ and prompts discovery of works by such lesser-known figures as Johann Theile, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, Christian Ritter and Franz Tunder. An instrumental piece by the Verona-born Antonio Bertali highlights the influence of Italian music on German composers of the time.

In an interview with the Bremen-based newspaper Weser-Kurier, Christina Pluhar provided some insights into the balance she strikes in her music-making with L’Arpeggiata. 

“A way of escaping any categorisation as a specialist in improvisation is to undertake projects in which I play pure Baroque music. I always try to reinvent myself, to create something from my innermost being … I can be quite satisfied with music as it was originally written, and we will play this music without making excursions into other fields … But it is also always exciting to look at this music through the eyes of musicians who come from a different musical genre, since it opens up new perspectives and gives rise to a kind of new music. That can only work when you are well acquainted with the original music and its style, and have great respect for it … There are pieces that lend themselves to being developed into something new, and there are others that must simply be presented in all their purity and beauty – works which must be left as they are. Sensitivity is everything.”

L’Arpeggiata / Christina Pluhar HIMMELSMUSIK

Himmelsmusik (‘heavenly music’), a programme of sacred songs and cantatas by German composers of the 17th century, presents a striking contrast with the previous Erato album from Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata: Händel Goes Wild. 

Himmelsmusik sees Pluhar taking a more sober and traditionally scholarly approach. She and L’Arpeggiata are joined by star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and the distinguished Belgian soprano Céline Scheen in a programme that includes the celebrated lamento ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte’ by Johann Christoph Bach (born over 40 years before his relative Johann Sebastian), Heinrich Schütz’s ‘Erbarm Dich mein, o Herre Gott’ and prompts discovery of works by such lesser-known figures as Johann Theile, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, Christian Ritter and Franz Tunder. An instrumental piece by the Verona-born Antonio Bertali highlights the influence of Italian music on German composers of the time.

In an interview with the Bremen-based newspaper Weser-Kurier, Christina Pluhar provided some insights into the balance she strikes in her music-making with L’Arpeggiata. 

“A way of escaping any categorisation as a specialist in improvisation is to undertake projects in which I play pure Baroque music. I always try to reinvent myself, to create something from my innermost being … I can be quite satisfied with music as it was originally written, and we will play this music without making excursions into other fields … But it is also always exciting to look at this music through the eyes of musicians who come from a different musical genre, since it opens up new perspectives and gives rise to a kind of new music. That can only work when you are well acquainted with the original music and its style, and have great respect for it … There are pieces that lend themselves to being developed into something new, and there are others that must simply be presented in all their purity and beauty – works which must be left as they are. Sensitivity is everything.”

Cyril Auvity / Ensemble Desmarest / Ronan Khalil MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers

Cyril Auvity heads the cast in a new recording of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers in a production being released by Glossa. Auvity is the lovelorn Orpheus who ventures, with his lyre, into the Underworld to plead with Pluto (Etienne Bazola) for the return of his Eurydice (Céline Scheen), struck down in her prime by a snakebite, being encouraged in his efforts by Proserpine, the wife of the ruler of Hades (Floriane Hasler).

This is a two-act chamber opera, written in 1686, and it is not known whether Charpentier ever composed any more music for the piece (the drama stops at a tantalizing moment in the well-known story). Even still, the composer appears to have invested substantial inspiration into the work, which will have been performed in front of the composer’s patron, Mademoiselle de Guise by a group of singers working within the limitations imposed by Jean- Baptiste Lully’s “musical monopoly” of the time.

For this recording, keyboard-player Ronan Khalil directs his Ensemble Desmarest. The demanding lead role of this entertainment continues Auvity’s strong current presence in French Baroque music-making – as well as his connection with Glossa. His Orpheus follows his previous Charpentier Stances du Cid release on the label, as well as appearances in operas by Campra, Destouches and Lully. Marc Trautmann both informs and entertains in his accompanying booklet essay. (Glossa)

Le Banquet Céleste / Damien Guillon GIROLAMO FRESCOBALDI Affetti Amorosi

With Affetti amorosi Damien Guillon directs a dazzling selection of vocal works from Girolamo Frescobaldi, drawn from the Ferrara composer’s two books of Arie musicali. These arias date from 1615-1630, by which time Frescobaldi, now resident in Rome, had become a “cult” composer, and permitted great expressive freedom in the performance of his music.

Purposefully offering a recording full of contrasts and singing of human and divine love, countertenor Guillon is admirably matched by the other vocal talents in Le Banquet Céleste: soprano Céline Scheen, tenor Thomas Hobbs and bass Benoît Arnould. This new Glossa recording includes two of Frescobaldi’s enduring and moving spiritual sonnets, Maddalena alla croce and Ohimè che fur as well as one of the nascent Baroque’s favoured vocal forms, the lettera amorosa, in Vanne, o carta amorosa.

The singers are joined by lute, harp, cello and harpsichord from Guillon’s ensemble. In his wideranging and thought-provoking essay Pierre-Élie Mamou points out vivid characteristics of this early Baroque music – including “the play of opposites that greatly moves our souls” – notably the polarities between anxiety and pleasure, and time which passes and time which remains. (GLOSSA)

Les Talens Lyriques / Christophe Rousset JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU Pygmalion

Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques bring us to the stage of the Royal Academy of Music where Pygmalion, an act of ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau inspired by an episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was created in 1748. Love, showing empathy for Pygmalion’s despair of loving a statue, invigorates the sculpted woman who immediately falls in love with her creator. Very suggestive, the music of this tender and mischievous ballet deploys the grace of 18^th century dances. Like Ovid’s Love, Christophe Rousset instils life in this score, one of Rameau’s greatest successes in his day, and offers us, thanks to his sense of drama and his impeccable leadership, a new and essential reading of this ballet.

Paolo Pandolfo IMPROVISANDO

Paolo Pandolfo is one of those rare artists who does not give into the temptation of establishing a regular and frequent rhythm of making new recordings – except, in his case, when he feels that he has something really relevant and new to say. If, in some way, this sets him apart and places him on the fringes of the record market, it does guarantee on the other hand a sense of timelessness and durability for his artistic work. His dazzling virtuosity and a musicality that knows no bounds transforms him into a true reference marker in an early music world that grows more predictable by theday.

And now, after nearly two years of silence, Pandolfo gathers round him a group of friends in order to create something which has practically been lost among the performers of “classical” music, victims of a wasting process that has become almost ingrained: improvisation. Turning back to a tradition which in the 16th and 17th centuries counted upon practitioners as famous as Diego Ortiz, Christopher Simpson and Girolamo Della Casa and that continued with significant names such as Frescobaldi, Corelli, Mozart and Brahms, these musicians unleash their imagination to regale us with eighty minutes of touching beauty and an unusual freedom. What we have here is a journey across musical structures which are mainly late- Renaissance ones, from dance ostinato basses (Pass’e mezzi, Folías, Canarios, Vacas) to the Fantasies for a solo instrument, from improvisations on a cantus firmus (La Spagna) to the alla bastarda style, based on polyphonic compositions (Anchor che col partire, Doulce Memoire)… Truly delightful.