Carlos 1

Et Jesum presents motets, antiphons, and mass sections by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, arranged for countertenor voice and accompanying stringed instrument. Both the laud (the Spanish version of the lute) and the more guitar-like vihuela are used by accompanist Juan Carlos Rivera. Rivera and countertenor Carlos Mena, a youthful alumnus of the Savall school, augment arrangements of Victoria's day with efforts of their own in a similar vein, and it would take a deep specialist indeed to pick out the 400-year-old ones.

Carlos Chávez is one of Mexico’s most important and prolific 20th-century composers. He championed the symphony form at a time when it was generally neglected by other Latin American composers, and the results are magnificent: when his first symphony Sinfonía de Antígona was premiered in 1933, invoking the best of Mexican tradition in a revived symphonic form, it received a rapturous reception, and led to a burst of inspiration for Chávez, who went on to compose five more symphonies before his death in 1978. He became a master of the symphony, developing and improving his style over the course of his life to great effect; the last movement of his Symphony No.6, a breathtakingly rapid Passacaglia, contains an astonishing 34 variations. This recording also includes his work Sinfonía india, arguably Chávez’s best-known piece, which features his use of indigenous Mexican instruments, played here with extraordinary lyricism and sensitivity.

Wendy Carlos is an American composer and keyboardist best known for her electronic music and film scores. The same year Carlos finalized the score for A Clockwork Orange, the composer recorded a double album named Sonic Seasonings; it was a complete turn away from the majestic synthesizer soundscapes and classical inspirations that had marked the movie score. Instead, Carlos recorded large amounts of environmental passages to produce a work that cycled through the four seasons. Beginning with bird calls and a thunderstorm to mark "Spring," Carlos phrases the synthesizers only in terms of the nature sounds heard…

This CD is a hodgepodge of various tunes from Bach to Beatles supposedly requested by listeners after "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer" was released. The result may only only be mildly interesting to the occasional listener, but to followers of electronic music, it's like rediscovering a lost gem.

In this album, Five verses, there are five instrumental pieces inspired by texts of different authors that put in value the binomial music-poetry from the saxophone-piano or saxophone- electronic binomials. In his first album, Carlos Zaragoza wants to bring together a collection of “songs without words” from 20 th and 21 st century composers André Caplet, Paul Hindemith, Orlando Bass, Vincent David and Luis Naón. The velvety timbre of the alto and soprano saxophone, the presence of air in the sound, and the eminently lyrical writing of the five composers confer an aura of vocality.

A fantastic recording of a live concert conducted by Carlos Chávez in May 1940 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The program representis an important period in Mexican history, and ranges from a special arrangement of music for Aztec instruments of the 16th century to the popular Huapangos, the gay love songs of the Mariachi and the traditional Yaqui music.

The debut album from a Spanish string-bass ensemble with a mission to revive lost treasures of chamber music from the Baroque era.