Airboss II (1998)

It's a real pity that most people's knowledge of Rossini begins and ends with the operas. Few people know that he actually wrote volumes of high-quality music for solo piano and chamber ensembles. No, Rossini is no Brahms or Schumann; don't expect heavy-duty Germanic introspection. What you can expect, however, is unfailing wit, humor, brilliance, humanity, and honesty written by a man who had seen and done just about everything in his long and eventful life.

Die zweichörige Matthäus-Passion, die bereits im posthumen Andenken der Bach-Familie als die «Grosse Bassion» bezeichnet wurde, gehört nicht nur zu Bachs umfangreichsten und gewichtigsten Kirchenkompositionen. Sie hat auch seit den spektakulären Wiederaufführungen Mendelssohns und Zelters im Jahre 1829 die neuzeitliche Wahrnehmung des Komponisten wesentlich geprägt.

Antonio Vivaldi - Concert for the Prince of Poland
Academy of Ancient Music - Andrew Manze
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 300 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # HMX 2907230 | Country/Year: Europe 2002, 1998
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…No doubt the Prince of Poland himself would have been thrilled to hear a concert in his honour performed as finely as it is here by Andrew Manze and the Academy of Ancient Music.

With all the dandy digital recordings of Handel's Concerto Grossi Opus 6 available, why choose this one made in the late '80s and early '90s with Christopher Hogwood leading the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston with Daniel Stepner, Stanley Ritchie, and Linda Quan starring as the violin soloists? Choosing a recording of Handel's concertos is, of course, inevitable in the life of any listener: along with Bach's Brandenburgs and Vivaldi's Four Seasons, they form the core repertoire of high Baroque orchestral music. But why choose Hogwood? For one thing, he has a well-deserved reputation as a Handel conductor: his Messiah was lean and muscular, expressive and intense, lyrical and dramatic – characteristics of these performances as well.

Nel 1752 per la terza volta, Porpora rivide la capitale dell'Austria.
Vi trascorse diversi anni e fu proprio in quel terzo soggiorno che Haydn lo conobbe e ne ricevette dei consigli. Fu senza dubbio grazie alla generosità dell'ambasciatore di Venezia che Porpora ebbe i mezzi per pubblicare le sue Sonate XII di violino e basso (dedicate a S.A.R. la principessa elettorale di Sassonia Maria Antonia Walpurga di Baviera da Niccolò Porpora maestro di cappella di S.M. il re di Polonia. In Vienna d'Austria, 1754. Si vendono dal signor Frederico Bernardi, libraro della corte imperiale.) Nell'epistola dedicatoria di quest'opera il compositore dice di aver fatto uso dei generi diatonico, cromatico ed enarmonico.

This was the great collection of 12 varied and exciting violin concertos that turned Bach on to concerto writing. In fact, he transcribed several of these works for solo harpsichord, organ–even for harpsichords and orchestra. What fascinated him most was the balanced, three-movement form, the brilliance of the solo passages, the tunefulness of the music generally, and Vivaldi's seemingly inexhaustible storehouse of invention. When a composer ventured to publish a collection such as this, he was making a major statement. This is one of the really big ones in Baroque music, and it's performed with splendid authority and an unrivaled sense of sheer joy.

PACIFIC MOON RECORDS is proud to introduce a unique concept in New Age music - a smooth blending of the ancient meditative sounds of the Orient, with the universality of modern music of the West.