Khalab & M'berra Ensemble M'berra

The Ensemble intercontemporain and its new music director Pierre Bleuse pay homage to György Ligeti, whose birth centenary we celebrated in 2023: ‘Ligeti is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century and certainly one of those who first made a powerful aesthetic impact on me personally!… This recording, my very first with the Ensemble intercontemporain, which combines concertos and chamber music, highlights the EIC’s qualities as soloists and chamber musicians. And I’m not forgetting that Ligeti is an integral part of the repertoire of the Ensemble, which has performed his works extensively…

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

Marin Marais (1656–1728) besides being Louis XIV’s court musician, was a prolific composer. He composed both operas, certain of which were very successful, instrumental music and some (lost) religious vocal music. As a viol player he published five books which include some of the most interesting and beautiful music for the viol. These five books also are chock full of performance instructions both for the left hand as well as the bow hand. They are a gold mine for viol players and are as relevant to teaching a musician good technique on the viol nowadays as they were when originally printed in the late seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century.

From Ockeghem born around 1420 to Lassus dead in 1594 via Josquin des Prés, this 8-CD collection presents almost two centuries of masterworks from one of the most extraordinary musical school, that could be compared to the Italian Renaissance in architecture or painting. The Hilliard Ensemble, founded by Paul Hillier in 1974 has championed this music with all the virtues of their instantly recognizable style and with a clarity and cleanness of timbre that are matchless.

This programme marks the eagerly awaited return of Véronique Gens to Baroque music and Lully, in which she made a name for herself at the start of her career. It presents airs from Atys, Persée, Alceste, Proserpine, Le Triomphe de l’Amour and other works by Louis XIV’s famous composer, but also several by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Médée), Henry Desmarets and Pascal Collasse. Whether well known, rare or in some cases even unpublished, all of them present roles for powerful women whose love is unrequited: dark passions, bitter laments, jealousy, vengeance, the type of dramatic characters that Véronique Gens embodies with all the charisma that has made her reputation. This recording is also the result of an encounter with the youthful ensemble Les Surprises, founded and directed by Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas. Together they conceived this programme, which mingles airs, dances and choruses, in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles.

Black Oak Ensemble, the Chicago-based string trio with an international following, treats listeners to a double-album of stylish and often witty French treasures written between the World Wars.

Was John Coprario taking credit for someone else’s work when, under his own name, he made transcriptions of more than fifty Italian madrigals for a consort of viols? Such an accusation would be based on false premises, as anything resembling copyright was unknown at the beginning of the seventeenth century and for long afterwards; the use of musical material by someone else was rather considered as a respectful examination of ideas that were so promising that one wanted to think them through further. When transcribing these Italian madrigals, Coprario was not only extending an established tradition but also transcending it. He did not simply omit the text in his madrigal fantasias as had been customary in the 16th century, but also took the polyphonic setting even further, enriching it with instrumental possibilities that voices alone could not match. He also rearranged certain parts so that the original vocal work is not always immediately recognisable. Coprario, besides being one of the first to give ensemble music an instrumental identity, was no musical parrot, but an ingenious parodist.

Minas Borboudakis has explored much mythology, philosophy, technology and the natural sciences, and the compositions in this collection reflect this. The CD includes the percussion concerto Archégonon: written for Peter Sadlo, it is a work dealing with “very beginnings”. Also included are two works written for the ensemble spectral: Tetraktys (a string quartet on the number 4) and Krámata (a sextet on alloys).

James Oswald was born in 1710 in the village of Crail in Fife to John Oswald, a town drummer frequently jailed for drunkenness and public swearing, the younger Oswald quickly developed a talent for music. By 1734 he was active as a cellist, dancing master, and composer in Dumferline and Edinburgh. His early works, including a sonata based on Scots tunes, were published under two Italian pseudonyms, “Dothel/Dottel Figlio” and “David Rizzio.” A move to London followed shortly thereafter, where Oswald opened a music shop and became a music publisher in addition to his more creative endeavours.