Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap (2011)

The album "El Paradís de les Paraules" of the musician and Valencian singer Carles Denia, has been considered by the magazine "Sons" as the best album of Catalan folk music in 2011. The work itself has been to put music to the Arab-Valencian poets between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. The translation of texts from Arabic into Catalan has been the work of the prestigious Valencian poet Josep Piera, with the help of the philologist Joseph Gregori.

Import five CD release from the acclaimed Brazilian singer, songwriter and guitarist contains five of his classic albums housed in paper sleeves in one package. This set features the albums Wonderful World Of (1965); Love Strings & Jobim (1966); A Certain Mr Jobim (1967); Urubu (1976) and Terra Brasilis (1980).

Bruno Sanfilippo is a classically trained musician and composer. He graduated from the Galvani Conservatory, Buenos Aires, with a degree in musical composition (piano). His focus alternates between the exploration of minimalist piano concepts and electro-acoustic music. He is obsessed with the search for new and unique qualities in music, the magical and the deep. In dreams, there’s no imagined thing that’s too absurd, too strange, and Bruno Sanfilippo’s music comes from that inexhaustible and shameless source.

The title of the two-disc album, Vivaldi: Vespro a San Marco, implies that the composer wrote a set of pieces comparable to Monteverdi's Vespro della beata Vergine, but the title needs to be interpreted somewhat loosely. The program notes describe the collection of psalms, canticles, motets, and prefatory chants recorded here as an evocation of a service of vespers Vivaldi might have assembled rather than a reconstruction of one he actually ever did. These vespers are distinctly Vivaldian in idiom, but they resemble Monteverdi's in the use of some common texts and in the diversity of musical styles, genres, and performing forces assembled; there is not much of a sense of unity in the traditional sense, but a profusion of delightfully varied musical vignettes, including a cappella chants, solos, ensembles, choruses, and instrumental pieces.

The Yorkshire Baroque Soloists and Yorkshire Bach Choir were formed in 1973 as the basis of the famous York Early Music Festival, and have built a firm reputation as one of the finest ensembles in the world in their performance and interpretation of 17th and 18th century music. Under their director Peter Seymour they return to disc with a fine selection of soloists to perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Their 2009 disc of Bach’s St John Passion, also on Signum, was released to excellent reviews.

Das Vokalensemble Cantus Cölln unter der Leitung von Konrad Junghänel gehört heute zu den renommiertesten Formationen seiner Art. Die über 30 CD-Einspielungen von Cantus Cölln wurden mit zahlreichen internationalen Preisen ausgezeichnet und umfassen musikalische Raritäten ebenso wie wegweisende Interpretationen von "Klassikern" des barocken Repertoires.

A red hot ticket at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010/2011 was Donizetti's comic gem, Don Pasquale, with Anna Netrebko reviving Norina, the part that made her a star in New York. Opera summed up the simple truth: ". . . everyone adored her". John Del Carlo's impressive singing and acting chops as the Don are given every boost by Otto Schenk's hilarious staging and James Levine's witty conducting. Leading this opera for the first time at the Met, the renowned maestro demonstrates that his gifts suit Donizetti as perfectly as Wagner. Mariusz Kwiecien and Matthew Polenzani scintillate as Malatesta and Ernesto.

Perti's music reveals a young and perceptive musical imagination, especially in the constellation of ever-changing solo-voice combinations and the rousing double fugue with which he brings the Mass to such a glorious conclusion. Lovers of Baroque polychorality will enjoy this.