Baroque

The second volume of the Complete Harpsichord Works includes the unpublished harpsichord works of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières from manuscript sources. Performed by Karen Flint on the 1635 and 1627 Ioannes Ruckers harpsichords.

No opera composer of the Baroque era invested his stage works with more imaginative orchestral music than Jean-Philippe Rameau. The adventurous wind orchestration, rhythmic drive and variety, and complex interplay of voices found in his interludes, dances, and preludes are immediately striking to modern ears in a way that only the dedicated orchestral works of other Baroque masters can match (think Handel's Royal Fireworks Music, for example).

With The All-Baroque Box we realize one of our fondest dreams: harnessing the deep catalogue of Archiv Produktion (supplemented on occasion by Decca L oiseau lyre recordings) to create a comprehensive collection of great music from Monteverdi to Bach. The music ranges from huge Baroque (Missa Salisburgensis, Venetian polychoral, Charpentier Te Deum) to intimate Baroque (the Goldberg Variations, Bach cello suites, solo cantatas) overwhelming in its impact and emotional content.

Northern Europe was a fertile ground for lyrical music: it has borrowed many memorable historical figures but is also indebted to it for many masterpieces by Baroque composers. Handel and Bach come to mind, of course, but we would be forgetting the Heinichen, Schürmann, Keiser and Telemann, whose brilliant opera music is so rarely performed. Many of them have portrayed monarchs, terrible or majestic, in their operatic works - roles that, unlike their southern colleagues, the composers of the Septentrion do not hesitate to entrust to lower voices.

James Oswald was born in 1710 in the village of Crail in Fife to John Oswald, a town drummer frequently jailed for drunkenness and public swearing, the younger Oswald quickly developed a talent for music. By 1734 he was active as a cellist, dancing master, and composer in Dumferline and Edinburgh. His early works, including a sonata based on Scots tunes, were published under two Italian pseudonyms, “Dothel/Dottel Figlio” and “David Rizzio.” A move to London followed shortly thereafter, where Oswald opened a music shop and became a music publisher in addition to his more creative endeavours.

Musica Baltica Volume 4 Johann Jeremias Du Grain was on familiar terms with the musical greats of his era. He learned the musical trade from Telemann, who was already famous at the time, and he assisted the very busy Handel with the composition of a festive cantata for the five hundredth anniversary of Elbing, his chosen place of residence. One hears traces of these illustrious surroundings in Du Grain's own cantatas, which Andrzej Szadejko and the Goldberg Baroque Ensemble are now presenting for the first time on this audiophile multichannel release in the Musica Baltica series. Du Grain's cantatas not only represent the very best of their times; they are also extraordinarily appealing.

Marie Leonhardt, comme son mari Gustav, fait partie des artistes qui ont redonné vie à la musique baroque à partir des années 1950. Violoniste, elle a aussi animé durant des années l'Ensemble Baroque de Mateus, du nom du magnifique palais portugais où elle réunissait ses musiciens. Cet enregistrement, initialement paru en 1993, est le seul réalisé par cet ensemble. Il donne à entendre un programme composé de chaconnes et passacailles baroques, ces danses construites sur des structures répétitives qui connurent une fortune immense aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. A cette réédition s'ajoute un enregistrement inédit par Marie Leonhardt de la Chaconne pour violon seul de Bach, réalisé en 2003. Un très grand disque, au delà des modes.