Fernando Habegger

Giulio Cesare Ricci is particularly fond of the music of the Argentinean tango king Astor Piazzolla, and so his label Fone repeatedly releases high-quality music by Piazzolla. On "Duettango", it is a top-class quartet that brings the Tango Nuevo to life: At the centre is violinist Fernando Suarez Paz, who played tango with Piazzolla himself in his Quarteto Nuevo in the 70s. Next to him, we hear his daughter Cecilia, whose singing is in no way inferior to her father's playing. Now you need a bandoneon player for the tango, and on this record it is Cesare Chiachiaretta, one of the best in the world at the moment.

Even in scholarly explorations of French-Baroque harpsichord repertoire, the name of Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier (1734-1794) is mentioned only in passing. Previous albums of his music have been dedicated to his organ output; this new album will attract any collectors of French Baroque music, who will be rewarded by memorable and colourful portrait pieces every bit as vivid as the likes of d’Anglebert and Couperin.

Suites, fugues, toccatas and variations by a well-travelled contemporary of JS Bach, in a new recording by an Italian harpsichordist with an impressive catalogue of Baroque rarities on Brilliant Classics.The music of Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch (1691-1765) has featured on a few enterprising collections of Baroque-era rarities, but this is the first-ever album to be entirely dedicated to the art of a composer whose style successfully mirrors his cosmopolitan outlook. Having received initial tuition from both his father Heinrich – another organist/composer – and from a pupil of Buxtehude, Hurlebusch left his birthplace of Braunschweig and embarked on a journey around Europe that, for the first half of his career, took him to Hambiurg, Tuscany, Venice, Stockholm and many points in between. On a stay in Leipzig, he met Bach and his sons; CPE mentioned Hurlebusch in dispatches as an excellent keyboard virtuoso.

The pinnacle of Renaissance music and its practice was forged in an incessant coming and going, a constant journey of musicians and musical chapels through courts or noble, royal, ducal, and papal houses throughout Europe. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, musicians from far and wide gathered in Flanders to catch up on musical material, sent by kings, dukes and counts from all over Europe. Some musicians called these gatherings “the schools.” These meetings served, in addition to learning things about their Art, as a kind of market for musicians. Musicians from the Franco-Flemish regions brought their polyphonic compositions and most refined musical skills to other countries like Italy or Spain.

The pinnacle of Renaissance music and its practice was forged in an incessant coming and going, a constant journey of musicians and musical chapels through courts or noble, royal, ducal, and papal houses throughout Europe. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, musicians from far and wide gathered in Flanders to catch up on musical material, sent by kings, dukes and counts from all over Europe. Some musicians called these gatherings “the schools.” These meetings served, in addition to learning things about their Art, as a kind of market for musicians. Musicians from the Franco-Flemish regions brought their polyphonic compositions and most refined musical skills to other countries like Italy or Spain.