Capo Plaza Feat. Papa V

Jan Dismas Zelenka - Complete Orchestral Works
Das Neu-Eröffnete Orchestre - Jürgen Sonnentheil
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 266+287+292 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: CPO # 999 897-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2002
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque

…If you haven’t heard this music, let’s just say that Zelenka wrote some of the most enjoyable and colorful music of the Baroque era, and he is supremely well served by CPO’s engineers, conductor Sonnentheil, and his New-Eröffnete Orchestre.

We badly need a complete set of Zelenka's orchestra works, as Arkiv's edition has long vanished into the remainder bins, and this one (previously issued as three separate CDs) fits the bill nicely. Although the players use "authentic instruments", their sound is comparatively warm and gentle, though this doesn't mean that they don't handle with aplomb the insanely virtuosic horn parts in the Capriccios, or the bubbling wind writing in the Concerto. The inclusion of the overture from Melodrama de S. Wenceslao makes an interesting bonus, with its fascinating opposition of simultaneous duple and triple rhythms.

Despite its similarity to other works such as "Good Liquor Gonna Carry Me Down," Big Bill Broonzy turns in another typically solid performance on "Mountain Blues," on which he is assisted by the expert accompaniment of Black Bob, a blues pianist who is largely a biographical blank. Broonzy also joins Cripple Clarence Lofton on the superb "Policy Blues," with the latter utilizing a "slow 'trucking' rhythm," according to booklet notes writers Stephen Calt and John Miller. The title of "When You Left" is a misinterpretation of the song's opening line "When you' left eye go to jumpin', you know something goin' on wrong." Confusion with the lyrics aside, the song is a fine pairing of brothers Bo Carter (nee Armenter Chatmon) and rarely recorded multi-instrumentalist Harry "Tie" Chatmon…