Hullet I Hækken

A storm of passaggi to echo the virtuosity of the cornettists of Renaissance Italy who exalted their instrument, of which Andrea Inghisciano is one of the most sought-after contemporary exponents (listen, for example, to the disc ‘La Morte della Ragione’ with Il Giardino Armonico). Here, along with the keyboard player María González, he presents a programme bursting with diminutions, whether written or improvised: from the acrobatics of Francesco Rognoni and Dario Castello to the sweetness of Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, by way of Girolamo Dalla Casa, who, while recommending performers to ‘do few things, but do them well’, amazes us with his exuberant writing, with rapid cascades of notes as arduous to play as they are fascinating to listen to. This duo recital is the recording debut of the ensemble I Cavalieri del Cornetto, which aims to explore the art of diminution in all its forms.

A generously-filled programme featuring 17 of Vivaldi's 39 Bassoon Concertos in which the distinguished bassoonist Klaus Thunemann is partnered with one of the great baroque music ensembles, I Musici.Vivaldi's 39 bassoon concertos (two are incomplete) are at the cornerstone of the bassoon repertory and in the context of Vivaldi's output constitute the greatest number of concertos for a single solo instrument after his 200+ solo violin concertos.

With THE FLEMISH CONNECTION vol. 2, I SOLISTI release a second album with works by their composer-in-residence Frederik Neyrinck. He has mastered the art of writing brilliant and innovative compositions that make the most of the wind ensemble’s wealth of sound colours quite like no other. The setting of texts and stories is a recurring theme throughout this fascinating album. Featured are concert versions of two musical theatre pieces: Landru, the story of a famous serial killer, and WILD, a magical realist fairy tale. The third work on the album, De oude woorden van een tijd die komen gaat (The old words of a time that still is yet to come), premiered at the 2021 Klarafestival and is based on a new idyll by Dutch author Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. Narrator Josse De Pauw and soprano Lore Binon guide us through this work, which is immersed in a medieval atmosphere reminiscent of the current pandemic.

If I Break Horses’s third album holds you in its grip like a great film, it’s no coincidence. Faced with making the follow-up to 2014’s plush Chiaroscuro, Horses’s Maria Lindén decided to take the time to make something different, with an emphasis on instrumental, cinematic music. That album is Warnings, an intimate and sublimely expansive return that, as its recording suggests, sets its own pace with the intuitive power of a much-loved movie. And, as its title suggests, its sumptuous sound worlds – dreamy mellotrons, haunting loops, analogue synths – and layered lyrics crackle with immersive dramatic tensions on many levels.

Swedish act Råg I Ryggen released one of those nearly-forgotten seventies heavy prog albums whose somewhat mythical reputation causes the original vinyl to fetch too high prices today. As with most albums of this sort, there’s no need to spend that kind of money since it was reissued on CD a few years ago. The band lasted only two years, and you won’t find a whole lot of information about them from most internet or written sources. No matter, they’ve included pretty much their entire biography in the liner notes of the album, which along with the bonus concert tracks makes this CD release something of an anthology as well. Being young and new, it isn’t surprising the band shows evidence of many influences in their music…

A versatile collection of Concertos and Arias by Vivialdi, from I Solisti Ambrosiani. The Solisti Ambrosiani are an Italian ensemble specialising in early music and in the philological performance on original instrumentation, founded in 2008 by the soprano Tullia Pedersoli and the violinist Davide Belosio.