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available January 13th 2017
JANUARY 13
RELEASE DATE 13TH JANUARY 2017
Farinelli - A Portrait live in Bergen
Ann Hallenberg Les Talens Lyriques Christophe Rousset
Label: Aparté File Under: Classical/Secular Vocal music Catalogue No: AP117 Barcode: 3149028077025 NORMAL Price Format: 1 CD Packaging: digipack Ann Hallenberg [mezzo-soprano] Les Talens Lyriques Christophe Rousset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS50H8D_TJ4
With more than a million copies sold, the soundtrack of Gérard Corbiau's film 'Farinelli' contributed considerably to the international renown of Les Talens Lyriques, in 1994. Back then the voice of the castrato Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782), was created using a computer to mix the voices of countertenor Derek Lee Ragin and soprano Ewa Mallas-Godlewska. On stage, in 2011, rather than a falsettist, world-renowned mezzo Ann Hallenberg,was chosen by Christophe Rousset to portray the first rock star in the history of music. "The magic of the film came about thanks to a gripping human story, reinforced by music that was equally gripping," resumes Christophe Rousset, music director and conductor of the production. The idea for this programme, recorded in concert in Bergen, was to mix the emblematic arias of the film with other works from Farinelli's repertoire and relate the two periods of his career: the first, virtuosic and flamboyant, where the character accumulated as many ducats as vocalises; and a second, melancholic, introverted and sensitive. The libretto relates the exciting life of the infamous castrato, crisscrossing Europe on concert tours, giving performances acclaimed by royalty and an adoring public alike. 1 Artasere, Act III, Scene 1: Aria "Son qual nave ch'agitata" (Arbace) 2 Idaspe, Act II, Scene 11: Aria "Ombra fedele anch' io" (Dario) 3 Adriano in Siria, Act I, Scene 2: Aria "Già presso al termine" (Farnaspe) 4 Semiramide riconosciuta, Act II, Scene 5: Aria "Si pietoso il tuo labro" (Mirteo) 5 Polifemo, HelN 31, Act I: Alto Giove (Acio) 6 Adriano in Siria, Act II, scene 7: Aria "Passagier che incerto" (Farnaspe) 7 Cleofide, Act I: Ouverture 8 Catone in Utica, Act I, Scene 7: Aria "Che legge spietata" (Arbace) 9 Catone in Utica, Act I: Aria "Cervo in bosco" (Arbace) 10 Alcina, HWV 34, Act III: Aria "Sta nell'Ircana" (Ruggiero) 11 Rinaldo, HWV 7a, Act II: Aria "Lascia ch'io pianga" (Almirena) 12 Semiramide riconosciuta, Act III, Scene 4: Aria "In braccio a mille furie" (Mirteo)
RELEASE DATE 13TH JANUARY 2017
Francesca CACCINI: La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina Commedia in musica Florence, 1625
Allabastrina, La Pifarescha / Elena Sartori
Label: Glossa File Under: Classical/Opera & Vocal Catalogue No: GCD923902 Barcode: 8424562239029 NORMAL Price Format: 1 CD Packaging: digipack
With this production of Francesca Caccini’s 'La liberazione di Ruggerio dall'isola di Alcina', directed by Elena Sartori, an important stepping-stone in the development of 17th-century opera receives a superb new recording from Glossa. For much of her career - Caccini was a composer, a virtuoso singer, a teacher, a poet and a multi-instrumentalist - she worked at the Medici court, and was commissioned by the grand duchess of Tuscany, Maria Maddalena of Austria, to write this commedia in musica for performance in Florence in 1625. Very probably this was the first opera composed by a woman, and its performance in Warsaw in 1628 stands as the first documented Italian opera known to have been staged outside the peninsula. Caccini’s score, evoking not just the music of her father, Giulio, but that of Jacopo Peri and of Monteverdi in Venice, is full of musical diversity and originality. The libretto of 'La liberazione' (by Ferdinando Saracinelli, working from Ludovico Ariosto’s epic 'Orlando furioso') portrays the struggle between two sorceresses - one ‘good’, Melissa, the other ‘evil’, Alcina - over the young knight Ruggiero, who has been bewitched by Alcina. The singers recorded here for these roles are Gabriella Martellacci, Elena Biscuola and Mauro Borgioni, whilst other roles - in a score packed with vocal opportunities - are taken by Emanuela Galli, Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli and Raffaele Giordani. Elena Sartori, who directs the ensembles Allabastrina and La Pifarescha, also contributes an illuminating booklet essay placing Francesca Caccini in her musical and biographical context. 1-5 Prologo 6-23 Scena I 24-25 Scena II 26 Scena III 27-31 Scena IV
Elena Biscuola Mauro Borgioni Gabriella Martellacci Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli Emanuela Galli Raffaele Giordani Yiannis Vassilakis Allabastrina, La Pifarescha / Elena Sartori [harpsichord & direction]
RELEASE DATE 13TH JANUARY 2017
Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de MONDONVILLE: Isbé Pastorale héroïque, Paris, 1742
Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra / György Vashegyi
Label: Glossa File Under: Classical/Opera & Vocal Catalogue No: GCD924001 Barcode: 8424562240018 NORMAL Price Format: 3 CD Packaging: digipack Katherine Watson Reinoud Van Mechelen Thomas Dolié Chantal Santon-Jeffery Alain Buet Blandine Folio Peres Rachel Redmond Artavazd Sargsyan Márton Komáromi
With 'Isbé', a pastorale héroïque by de Mondonville, György Vashegyi revives another overlooked dramatic work from the French Baroque – much as he did with Rameau’s 'Les Fêtes de Polymnie' also on the Glossa label. In his native Budapest, Vashegyi has been developing his interpretations of Baroque music with his Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir for nearly three decades now, and for this recording he has assembled a magnificent team of vocal soloists, well-versed in the idiom of 18th-century French opera. Thomas Dolié assumes the important role of Adamas, the Chief Druid, who is besotted by Isbé, and yet is also provided with modern Enlightenment thinking (the opera was premièred in 1742). The title role is taken by British soprano Katherine Watson, while Isbé’s other suitor, Coridon, is sung by tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen. Despite being somewhat over-shadowed in his lifetime by his older and more prolific contemporary, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Mondonville was already a successful composer of instrumental music and some ambitious grands motets before he composed 'Isbé', and his operatic vision was remarkably well-advanced in terms of structure, orchestration and melodic invention; he was clearly also aware of the advances made by Antonio Vivaldi in orchestral music. A new recording of music by Mondonville – and György Vashegyi and his team have also been responsible for a disc of grands motets – is a welcome development in the modern re-evaluation of this impressive composer from the Languedoc. CD I [61:25] Prologue, Acte I CD II [48:55] Acte II, Acte III CD III [63:04] Acte IV, Acte V ALSO AVAILABLE: GCD923508 Mondonville: Grands Motets “Well-heeled in the French Baroque, György Vashegyi’s effusive period-instrument Orfeo Orchestra and glowing Purcell Choir play its Handelian accents with all the gusto it merits … there is still much to enjoy in the serene melancholy of De Profundis, the glorious rhetoric of Magnus Dominus and graceful eloquence of Nisi Dominus.” Classical Ear, 5/7/2016 GCD923502 Rameau: Les Fêtes de Polymnie “It is greatly to the credit of Gyorgy Vashegyi and his Hungarian Chorus and period-instrument orchestra that the performance fully bears comparison with those of the finest French specialists in this repertoire. The splendid orchestra in particular delights in Rameau’s richly colourful palette … overall a splendid recording that is essential listening for all Ramistes.” Opera, May 2015
RELEASE DATE 13TH JANUARY 2017
The Bach Album Works by Johann Sebastian Bach transcribed for the viola da gamba by F. Alqhai
Fahmi Alqhai
Label: Glossa File Under: Classical/Instrumental Catalogue No: GCDP33205 Barcode: 8424562332058 NORMAL Price Format: 1 CD Packaging: digipack Fahmi Alqhai [viola da gamba]
One of the challenges for a modern-day viola da gamba virtuoso is the need to be constantly searching for (and finding) new and demanding solo repertory with which to demonstrate technical and interpretative prowess - especially given that the supply of this dried up during the course of the Baroque era. One of Fahmi Alqhai’s solutions to this challenge is the more-than-legitimate recourse to transcriptions, and in a tour de force on 'The Bach Album' he presents four such reworkings – all made by himself – of solo instrumental masterpieces by the great composer. Alqhai has adapted the Second Violin Sonata, the Fourth Cello Suite, and also the Flute Partita. He completes his programme with the astonishing – and inexhaustible – Chaconne from the Second Violin Partita. This final flourish from one of his concert programmes and his recording for this new Glossa release, made in the Estudios Sputnik in Seville, clearly shows how his interpretation has been honed in live performance. That these transcriptions sound as though they could have been written for the viola da gamba is, of course, testament to Bach’s genius. It is, however, also, a reflection of the naturalness and vivid communication that is the hallmark of Fahmi Alqhai’s playing and musical thinking. Spanish viola da gamba player Fahmi Alqhai is one of that select group of artists who define and shape the world of Glossa. With his ensemble Accademia del Piacere, Alqhai has, for some years now, been turning away from the well-worn pathways in order to explore new possibilities in terms of presentation and interpretation. 1-4 Violin Sonata no. 2, BWV 1003 5-10 Cello Suite no. 4, BWV 1010 11-14 Flute Partita, BWV 1013 15 Violin Partita no. 2, BWV 1004, Ciaccona ALSO AVAILABLE: GCDP33201 Rediscovering Spain: Fantasías, diferencias & glosas GCDP33202 A piacere: Music for viola da gamba GCDP33203 Las idas y las vueltas GCDP33204 Cantar de Amor: Juan Hidalgo and 17th-century Spain “Les pleurs, the baseline of gamba repertoire, is as accomplished a performance as you could expect, confirming Alqhai as a master of the instrument...” Gramophone Magazine, May 2014
RELEASE DATE 13TH JANUARY 2017
Metanoia: Piano Works by Franz Liszt Béatrice Berrut In his life as in his work, Liszt's music represents a stylised struggle between good and evil; light and darkness. His writing, which may at times be described as Manichean, nevertheless explores all the pains and joys that a human soul can experience and creates an unbreakable thread between feelings that are very remote from each other. Liszt’s metanoia: his courageous path towards light and serenity, provides a touching and liberating example of a man who assumed his consuming passions and sublimated them in the works he created. An intimate lecture of Liszt's soul by Swiss pianist Béatrice Berrut, recorded in Paris by Nicolas Bartholomée on a Bösendorfer piano in April 2016.
Label: Aparté File Under: Classical/Instrumental Catalogue No: AP137 Barcode: 3149028098723 NORMAL Price Format: 1 CD Packaging: digipack Béatrice Berrut [piano]
1 Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata (Années de pèlerinage II, S. 161 No. 7) 2 Ballade No. 1 in D flat major S170 ('Le chant du croisé') 3 Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S171/R16 4 Vallée d'Obermann (Années de pèlerinage I, S. 160 No. 6) 5-10 Consolations, Six Pensées poétiques, S. 172 https://soundcloud.com/beatriceberrut https://soundcloud.com/apartemusic
ALSO AVAILABLE BY BEATRICE BERRUT: AP100 Lux æterna – Visions of Bach “Berrut…proves a compelling advocate of Busoni’s organ-chorale transcriptions and then lifts the roof off with Escaich’s Baroque reappropriations” Julian Haylock / BBC Music Magazine
RELEASE DATE 13TH JANUARY 2017
BRAHMS: The String Quartets; The String Quintets Budapest Quartet This double album comprises all Brahm’s quartets and quintets as performed by the Budapest Quartet. They succeeded in imposing chamber music on a musical world which only had ears for Beethoven. It served as a model for a whole generation of quartet musicians such as Berg, Pražák and Belcea, who in turn followed on from the likes of Julliard and Vegh. This is a tribute to Walter Trampler (1915-97), the great American violist. The Budapest String Quartet was in existence from 1917-1967. It originally consisted of three Hungarians and a Dutchman; at the end, the quartet consisted of four Russians. A number of recordings were made for HMV/Victor until 1938; from 1940-1967 it recorded for Columbia Records. CD1: 1-4 String Quartet No. 2 Op.51 No. 2 5-7 String Quartet No. 3 Op. 67
Label: Praga Digitals File Under: Classical/Chamber music Catalogue No: PRD250348 Barcode: 3149028095722 MID Price Format: 2 CD Packaging: cristal Budapest Quartet: Josef Roisman, Alexander Schneider, Boris Kroyt, Mischa Schneider Walter Trampler [viola]
CD2: 1-4 String Quartet No. 1 Op. 51/1 5-7 String Quintet No. 1 Op. 88 8-11 String Quintet No. 2 Op. 111 Recorded in New York January 1958 [Quintets], 1963 [Quartets] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaLjsQe8iwZ58o4RPF1LI1EtRcru7ev1P