Ensemble Stravaganza Biber, Schmelzer, Mealli, Böddecker (2023) [official Digital Download 2496]

This fourth album in the "Solo" collection, highlighting the individual talents of the Orchestre national d'île-de-France, is brought to life by the violinist Domitille Gilon, co-founder of the Stravaganza Ensemble. A true testimony to the musical life at the Habsburg court, swirling with virtuosity, it brings together around Biber the composers Schmelzer, Mealli and Böddecker, key figures in the Baroque repertoire.

Whether we call them ‘Mystery’ or ‘Rosary’ Sonatas, these fifteen pieces, crowned by a sublime passacaglia for unaccompanied violin, form one of the greatest violinistic masterpieces of the Baroque repertory.This version, by Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti, derived from a dance project with the Rosas company, leads us into their magical universe through a novel prism: that of movement, to which these pieces are an infinite ode.

Volume 70 of the Vivaldi Edition revives a serenade by the "Red Priest" led with brio by Andrea Buccarella, his Abchordis Ensemble and a triad of vibrant soloists.

In recent years London has become an epicenter for experimental, visionary jazz.

Music and mathematics were taught together in Europe’s universities for centuries before science and the arts drifted apart. Conductor Oliver Zeffman shows how the two subjects intersect in this live album, part of his Music x Museums series. Its program, performed in the well-stocked space of London’s Science Museum, explored the diverse ways in which composers play with the nature of musical time. It was brought to life by Ozero Ensemble’s 16 players, almost within touching distance of objects in the museum’s Stephen Hawking at Work exhibition.

Armide, Clorinde, Procris, Lucrèce : les Héroïnes peuplent la tragédie lyrique et la cantate dans la France musicale baroque, de Lully à Montéclair, et même dans la chanson populaire. Guerrières ou magiciennes, amoureuses ou victimes, leurs destinées fascinèrent les compositeurs et le public. Camille Delaforge réunit un florilège de musiques exaltantes, où ces femmes hors du commun sont élevées sur le piédestal de la gloire et de l’amour.

Robert Muller-Hartmann was born in Hamburg, in 1884, the son of the piano teacher and clarinettist Josef Muller and his wife, Jenny. He studied in Berlin for four years, but then returned to Hamburg where he pursued a successful career combining teaching, composing, and writing. His works were widely performed by conductors such as Karl Muck, Carl Schuricht, Richard Strauss, Otto Klemperer, and Fritz Busch, and regularly played on German Radio. With the advent of National Socialism, in 1933, Muller-Hartmann was forced to resign from his teaching posts at the University and Conservatory.

Antonio Caldara, a native of Venice, spent almost two decades at the beginning of the 18th century in the service of the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI as Vice-Kapellmeister.

Wondrous Machine is the title of an air from Purcell's Odes for St. Cecilia's Day, a hymn of praise to the music of which Cecilia is considered the patron saint, and to the instruments from the flute to the organ, of which she is considered the inventor. Not as an inventor, but as an innovative rediscoverer and ambassador of an equally "wondrous" instrument, namely the historical harp and its "entourage", is Margret Koell. She programmatically places the title "Wondrous Machine" above a project that focuses on the tonal mutability of the triple harp. The programme focuses on George Frideric Handel: the Concerto Op. 7 No. 1 for harp, lute and orchestra is Koell's arrangement of the original concerto for organ and orchestra. The Concerto Op. 4 No. 6 is presented here for the first time in the extremely rarely heard version of 1736 for harp and lyrichord (viola organista) - the latter, a bowed keyboard instrument, is based on sketches by Leonardo da Vinci.