CARLO GESUALDO
O DOLCE MIO TESORO MADRIGALI A CINQUE VOCI LIBRO SESTO (1611)
Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe

A personality has who provoked considerable controversy over the centuries, Carlo Gesualdo (1566- 1613), aristocrat, musician and murderer of his first wife, is no less a composer whose music is marked by subtlety and refinement. His innovative Sixth Book of Madrigals, written two years before his death, exploits all harmonic, chromatic, and textural possibilities to meet the texts’ expressive requirements and proves to be a veritable masterpiece of the genre.

After a first disc devoted to the Italian composer’s sacred works, the Tenebrae Responsoria, Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent invite us to (re)discover his secular music for the 450th anniversary of his birth. In masterful fashion, they propose a delicate, expressive reading of this complex music, doing justice to the modernity of the musical language of the Prince of Venosa. The acoustics of the church in the little Tuscan village of Asciano, where the programme was recorded in 2015, provides an ideal sound setting for this music.

LOCATELLI – LECLAIR
TARTINI – FORQUERAY
L’ANGE ET LE DIABLE
Chouchane Siranossian
Jos Van Immerseel

After a year of celebrations of his seventieth birthday, including several recordings of orchestral music, Jos Van Immerseel returns to chamber music and the accompaniment of young talents, two absolute priorities for him. In Chouchane Siranossian he has found a worthy partner, as gifted on the modern violin as she is on the Baroque instrument, a pupil of Tibor Varga, then of Zakhar Bron, as well as a disciple of Reinhard Goebel, whose first recording, on the Oehms label, attracted great attention (winning a ‘Diapason Découverte’). Here it is the Baroque violinist who engages in dialogue with the harpsichord of Jos Van Immerseel in a Franco-Italian programme juxtaposing the music of the ‘Angel’ Leclair and the ‘Devil’ Locatelli, not forgetting Tartini’s famous ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata . . . Indeed, all this music is ‘devilishly’ difficult to play, but the Franco-Armenian violinist shows perfect mastery of it, combined with great inventiveness.

THE FLEMISH PIANO SONATINA IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Daniel Blumenthal

If throughout its history, Flanders has seen some of the most beautiful musical works of all times composed within its boundaries, the 20th century is no exception to the rule. Between 1930 and 1960, a vast quantity of sonatinas for piano were composed, these being commissioned or encouraged by music schools and publishers with the student in mind. These works, though essentially intended for pedagogical use, present a definite musical interest. It is through this prism that Daniel Blumenthal, renowned musician and pedagogue, makes us discover, in a manner combining tranquil ease and poetic purity, a varied mosaic of this repertoire by Flemish composers of the last century – such as Flor Peeters, Prosper Van Eechaute, Godfried Devreese, Marcel Poot, Peter Cabus…

Outhere Music

BUY NOW, Chouchane Siranossian, Collegium Vocale Gent, Flemish composers, Jos van Immerseel, Philippe Herreweghe

By Axel De Schrijver

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