Dominik Wörner / Kirchheimer Düben Consort / Jörg-Andreas Bötticher NUNC DIMITTIS

 

NUNC DIMITTIS

 

Voces Suaves / Jörg-Andreas Bötticher COME TO MY GARDEN, MY SISTER, MY BELOVED

Voces Suaves, which performs Renaissance and Baroque music with solo voices, is a vocal en- semble based in Basel (Switzerland). Taking into account the insights of historical performance practice, the ensemble strives for captivating rhetoric combined with a warm and full overall sound that makes the music come alive with emotion. By virtue of the intensive collaboration, a great familiarity within the musical work has evolved. 

The ensemble, founded in 2012 by Tobias Wicky, is made up of a core of eight professional singers of whom most have a connection with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The ensemble’s character has been shaped together with Francesco Saverio Pedrini, who directed it until 2016. Since then it works without a permanent director, but maintains frequent collaborations with Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and Johannes Strobl. 

The repertoire contains a broad selection of Italian madrigals, works of the Early German Baroque, and larger-scaled Italian oratorios and Masses. In planning the programs, care is taken to include works by forgotten composers, such as Lodovico Agostini or Giovanni Croce, alongside those of well-known masters like Monteverdi or Schütz. 

Voces Suaves regularly joins together with other ensembles in order to perform larger-scale works. Since 2015 various recordings have been released and have been honored with interna- tional prizes (including the Diapason découverte).

Amandine Beyer / Leila Schayegh ANTONIO CALDARA Trios Sonatas

Two former students of the Schola Cantorum in Basel, both now captivating audiences each with their individual violinistic artistry, Amandine Beyer and Leila Schayegh, join forces for a new SCB recording devoted to the trio sonata music of Antonio Caldara, and issued with Glossa.

Though he is known now (as for much of his life) primarily as a composer of oratorios and operas, the Venetian Caldara made his name penning early examples of the trio sonata form; his Opp. 1 and 2 sets were published in 1693 and 1699 respectively. Caldara’s Op. 1 Trio Sonatas are characterized by their contrasting use of fast and slow movements, those from the second set by their incorporation of dances. Yet Caldara’s melodic gift – which was to serve him so well in his musical posts in various Italian states, in Barcelona, and as vice-Kapellmeister at the Imperial Court in Vienna – is already evident in Beyer and Schayegh’s selection from his instrumental publications; the composer was also already noted as a virtuoso of the cello – and he also played the violin and keyboard, and the awareness of all these instruments is greatly evident in these trio sonatas.

The continuo team here is made up of Jonathan Pesek, cello, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher, harpsichord and organ, and Matthias Spaeter, liuto attiorbato. Beyer and Schayegh both were taught at the SCB by Chiara Banchini and are continuing their connection with the school as teaching successors to Banchini. (GLOSSA)