Alis Mitsy

Who would have thought that the principal source for the music of Padre Antonio Soler was still waiting to be discovered? The manuscript acquired by the Morgan Library of New York in 2011 has proved to be the richest extant collection of sonatas by Soler; 29 of them are unpublished. For his first recording on harmonia mundi, the young harpsichordist Diego Ares reminds us of the powerful impression the composer made on a grandee of Spain in 1765: ‘Fray Antonio Soler produces finer sonatas from day to day.’ Listening to this disc, one cannot but agree: each sonata is indeed a world unto itself.

Who are the men and women who bring bloody death to innocent civilians? Why do they do it? What are their methods? And how do they justify it? This emotionally charged four-part series provides unprecedented interviews with dozens of bombers, gunmen, hijackers, kidnappers, and radical leaders as it scrutinizes key terror campaigns that changed the course of modern history, right up to the destruction of the World Trade Center. These powerful interviews, intercut with grim newsreel film and video footage and peppered with photos from police and news archives, make this series an unforgettable viewing experience.

In its bell-like sonorities, clear textures and ritual manner, the piano music of Robert Saxton (born in London in 1953) suggests an almost oriental fascination with light and the way light refracts and diffracts – and yet it is audibly music written by an Englishman. In the two Books of Saxton’s Hortus Musicae in particular, this fascinating confluence generates a soundworld somewhere downstream from Takemitsu and Tippett, giving these gardens of music both a ceremonial dignity and sense of spring growth.