Pia Davila O LUNA MIA

 

O LUNA MIA

Ensemble Correspondances / Sébastien Daucé MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER Messe à quatre chœurs

 

MESSE À QUATRE CHOEURS

 

Heidi Maria Taubert / Instrumenta Musica / Ercole Nisini PASSACAGLIE D'AMORE

 

PASSACAGLIE D'AMORE

Dorothee Oberlinger / Dmitry Sinkovsky / Ensemble 1700 DISCOVERY OF PASSION

                                                        DISCOVERY OF PASSION

Silvia Frigato / Accademia d’Arcadia / Alessandra Rossi Lürig ET MANCHI PIETÀ

Inspired by the work of painter Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome 1593Naples ca. 1656), this release aims to explore features of both paintings and music of the early Italian Baroque, highlighting their creative features and their emotional foundations. Daughter of Orazio Gentileschi (one of the rst Italian Caravaggesque painters) Artemisia was, until a few decades ago, remembered chiey for the scandal of the rape trial she brought against Agostino Tassi, one of her fathers artistic partners, who abused her when she was 17. She had to wait over 300 years to see her value as a painter fully recognised. The music is performed by Accademia d'Arcadia, an ensemble comprising 13 musicians playing period instruments and a singer. The CD contains a 28 page, full colour booklet featuring 3 of Artemisias most famous paintings, detailed infos and texts, together with detailed background information, resulting in a concept that is both interesting and affecting.

Emőke Baráth, Il Pomo d'Oro, Francesco Corti VOGLIO CANTAR

The Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) was probably the most remarkable, talented, famous and successful woman of her times in the field of music. In 2019 we will celebrate its 400th anniversary with a new program performed by soprano Emöke Baráth under the direction of Francesco Corti.

The album, Voglio Cantar, present some of her most beautiful compositions for soprano, some works by her teacher Francesco Cavalli, and a delightful variety of contemporary instrumental pieces.

Barbara Strozzi grew up in a household frequented by illustrious intellectuals. In the year 1637 her father founded an academy exclusively focused on music, the ‚accademia degli unisoni’ – which was not only hosted and presided over by Barbara, but also became her stage to perform her own music. She received her musical education from Francesco Cavalli, who then worked in various important musical positions in Venice and was about to launch his career as an opera composer.

Barbara Strozzi published a significant number of music: 8 volumes of madrigals, arias, ariettas, canzoni – including one volume of sacred music. Most of the compositions are focused on the soprano voice, displaying its pure beauty in lyrical melodies. The only painted (supposed) portrait of Barbara Strozzi shows her as a musician in quite a lascivious pose, presenting the then typical association of female musician and courtesan. Barbara Strozzi died in Padova in the year 1677 under unknown circumstances.

Roberta Mameli / Luca Pianca ANIME AMANTI

A voice, a lute, a sigh. Nothing could be simpler and more immemorial. This expression of sentiments and emotions, of the intermittencies of the heart and the shadows of the soul, is of course as old as the world. Yet it was truly a reconquest of the Renaissance. With Caccini, the ‘new music’ at once found a miraculous melodist. He composed a Euridice, performed in 1602, two years after Jacopo Peri’s setting and five years before Monteverdi’s Orfeo. The Renaissance did not know opera, but long secreted that genre soon to be born. And it is brand-new opera that opens and closes this recording, through the voice of its first visionary, Claudio Monteverdi. His Lamento d’Arianna, the centrepiece of a lost work, expresses sorrow, regrets, revolt through the very music of the Italian language, here brought to white heat. The ‘new music’ spread throughout Italy: Merula in Cremona, Falconieri in Naples, and Barbara Strozzi, the most famous woman composer of the age, in Venice.

The Italian soprano Roberta Mameli is a great lover of this music, which she performs with an outstanding feeling for words and drama. Luca Pianca offers her his artistry and his great experience. Roberta Mameli is joining Alpha for several recordings, which will guide us towards other rarities and other periods. (LQM)

Simone Kermes / Enrico Casazza / La Magnifica Comunità LOVE

A collection of beautiful baroque and renaissance love songs that reflect the versatility of love – passionate, dramatic and addictive by the most popular composers of this time, from Monteverdi, Purcell, Cesti to Merula and Dowland.

Love is Simone Kermes’ most intimate and personal album yet.

The arrangement, cast of instruments, and recording set up is as such that the “pop song” quality, the contemporary and eternal spirit, the immediacy of these compositions is revealed. All sung with the unique legato, pure, and silver quality that makes Simone Kermes’ voice so special.

Simone Kermes is a dramatic coloratura soprano and multi-award winner. For her solo albums she has received a number of international awards, such as the annual award of the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik, the Echo Klassik award for 2011 Female Singer of the Year, the Diapason d`Or, Midem Award, Choc Le Monde de la Musique and Gramophone magazine’s Recording of the Month. In April 2013 she received one of Russia’s highest cultural awards, the Golden Mask, for her performances as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Tchaikovsky State Academic Theatre in Perm.

Opera performances have taken her as Konstanze, the Queen of the Night, Fiordiligi, Donna Anna, Giunia, Rosalinde, Lucia, Gilda, Ann Truelove, Alcina and Laodice, among other roles, to New York, Paris, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Moscow, Beijing and German state opera houses. (Presto Classical)

Magdalena Kožená / La Cetra / Andrea Marcon MONTEVERDI

In 2000 Magdalena Kožená took over from an ailing Anne Sofie von Otter as Nero in the Vienna Festival production of L’incoronazione di Poppea, not only saving the day but also scoring a great personal success. And yet a deeper connection to Monteverdi and his music can be traced to a far earlier date, as the singer herself recalls: “I was sixteen when I met a lutenist with whom I formed an ensemble for Baroque and Renaissance music. It was a very important experience for me, for not only did I learn the Italian language through these pieces, but I discovered a great deal about the style of the music of this period and about the way in which it is ornamented.” Since then Magdalena Kožená has explored the world of opera in far greater depth. Not only has she sung Mozart, she has also appeared in productions of Carmen, Pelléas et Mélisande and Der Rosen- kavalier. “So it’s more of a romantic repertory,” the singer explains. “But this doesn’t mean that I have banished Monteverdi from my life. I return to him again and again and I feel at home with him.” In short, the present recording marks the singer’s return to her original repertory. She is accompanied here by Andrea Marcon, with whom she has already recorded Vivaldi and Handel recitals. For Magdalena Kožená this artistic partnership represents a great gain: “Andrea has a lot of experience in this repertory, and he is also a very spontaneous sort of person: his music-making is always highly charged and full of surprises. Of course we rehearse before a concert or in advance of a recording and agree on the basic interpretation. But we know each other so well that we can then allow ourselves the freedom to improvise. This works only with certain people and only in Baroque music – for me it’s a bit like jazz, where musicians react spontaneously to the spirit of the moment.”

Hille Perl / Lee Santana / Marthe Perl BORN TO BE MILD

Hille Perl is widely regarded as one of the leading viola da gambists in the world. Because of the prominence of her instrument in the Baroque era, her repertory is rich in works from that period, with the names, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe, and other 17th and 18th century composers headlining her concert programs and recordings. Perl also plays the treble viol, the seven-string bass viol, Baroque guitar, Lirone, and Xarana. She often performs with her husband, lutenist Lee Santana, in duo repertory, and together the pair have formed two other ensembles: Los Otros, with guitarist Steve Player, and the Age of Passions, with violinist/conductor Petra Müllejans and flutist Karl Kaiser. Perl has also appeared with some of the leading Baroque ensembles in Europe, like the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Harp Consort. She has made numerous recordings, many of them available from Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (DHM).

 Hille Perl was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1965. Her father Helmuth was a harpsichordist, organist, and musicologist. Hille began playing the viola da gamba at five. She had studies with Niklas Trüstedt (Berlin) and with Pere Ros and Ingrid Stampa (Hamburg). Perl earned a degree in 1990 at Bremen's Academy for Early Music, where she studied with Sarah Cunningham and Jaap ter Linden.

Perl steadily built her career, and soon began appearing on recordings. Among the earliest was a 1997 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CD, Spanish Gypsies, with Santana, Player, Andrew Lawrence-King, and other notables. Perl and Santana formed Los Otros (The Others) in 2001 and their first recording, Tinto, a collection of works by Kapsberger, Corbetta, and others, appeared on RCA Special Imports in 2003. From 2002, Perl has taught viola da gamba at the University of the Arts in Bremen, while remaining busy both in the concert hall and recording studio. (Robert Cummings)