Cyclo Tôn Thât Tiêt

After "Ginastera" (2016) and "Debussy/Tôn Thât-Tiêt" (2018), PRAELUDIO is the third opus - the first as a soloist- that Patrick Langot has recorded with Klarthe Records. Founder of the Syntonia Quintet, soloist and chamber musician with a much praised discography (Chocolate Classical, Diapason Découverte, first choice of the "Tribune des Critiques" on France Musique) and lead cellist of internationally renowned ensembles, Patrick Langot delivers here a recital on three different instruments, uniting the Alpha and Omega of the "prelude" for solo cello. A voyage from the baroque to the modern day, where Domenico Gabrielli exchanges with Sofia Gubaidulina and where a composition by Benoît Menut (Grand Prix SACEM 2016 "young composer") stands alongside a personal, spiritual and original vision of the most famous pages of music written for the cello: the preludes of the six suites; BWV 1007-1012, by J.S.Bach.

Released on 15th October, Velvet Armour is the follow-up to Ton Scherpenzeel’s 2013 album The Lion’s Dream. A highly respected musician, the legendary keyboardist is known for being the founder of Dutch band Kayak and for his work with Camel, and has recently become a prized acquisition to the Friendly Folk record label headed up by Kathy Keller…

Whilst Handel was renowned in his lifetime as a virtuoso organist, his art was based on improvisation. He left no developed oeuvre of keyboard pieces which would give us an idea of his full capabilities as an organist. His organ concertos are actually theatre pieces, developed by Handel to support his oratorio performances. Handel brought in an organ to act as continuo in the choruses and developed the idea of an organ concerto as a way of adding extra novelty. At the oratorios, the audience could not rely on novelty and virtuoso display from the latest Italian singers so Handel’s performances on the organ were a sort of substitute.

The present set is the debut of Ton Koopman on the Challenge Classics label and the re-start of the series of complete cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. Volume 13 in this CD presentation contains the third series of chorale cantatas from the second annual cycle Bach composed for Leipzig. Music criticism in the modern sense did not exist in the eighteenth century, so we do not really know anything about how the public responded to Bach's music. One of the few comments we have is in a newspaper report of Bach's first appearance in the capacity of Cantor of St Thomas's, presenting a cantata on 30 May 1723,but we learn only that it was received with approbation, even applause.

If only for his melodic genius, Handel would have been forever acknowledged as one of history's greatest composers. These delightful sonatas for recorder provide abundant evidence to support that claim, and Marion Verbruggen's warm, resonant recorder and brilliant flute prove the perfect partners for bringing these rarely heard pieces to life.