Khalab & M'berra Ensemble M'berra

Build Bridges combines stellar musicianship with unlimited drive and lag proof swing-ability. You can hear the maturity of their sound, which inadvertently allows you to appreciate their previous recordings even more. They’re all in the same ballpark yet seem to be on a completely different playing field. Tim Felten’s lineup not only shows his keen ability to pick top choice artists, but also shows his sense of direction and investment to high quality musicians. The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble is a staple of the west cost soul/jazz/funk scene and with their third LP, they solidify their position. Heavy grooves and drums, with top tier musicianship and writing. Build Bridges is just as sophisticated as it is soulful and funky!

Since its formation in 2008, the Ensemble Correspondances has devoted itself chiefly to French sacred music of the seventeenth century. Brought together by Sébastien Daucé during their studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique (CNSM) de Lyon, the musicians of Correspondances pursue this work (focusing notably on Marc-Antoine Charpentier) with infectious enthusiasm today.

Giuseppe Maria Boschi was undoubtably one of the most famous and virtuosic baritones of the 18th century. He had a brilliant and intense career on a par with those of renowned contemporary castrati and sopranos, including Farinelli, Senesino, Faustina Bordoni, Margherita Durastanti, Francesca Cuzzoni and Nicolini. He was one of the leading baritones throughout London from 1720 to 1728, sought after by Georg Frederich Händel, Giovanni Bononcini, and Attilio Ariosti. Warrior, father, lover, tyrant: many were the roles to show the nuances of his vocality which, judging by the music written for him, was of exceptional range and well-suited for dramatic roles.

In 2017, the Ensemble arabesques began realising its idea of devoting albums to composers with a special predilection for woodwind instruments. The series was launched with the highly successful CD Gustav Holst Kammermusik. This was followed in 2019 by works of Francis Poulenc. For the third album, Jacques Ibert was an obvious choice. As with Holst, the particular charm of Ibert's works derives from the various combinations of woodwind and brass instruments, strings and harp that he uses.

In the Italian society of the early eighteenth century, the musical genre of the chamber cantata was popular as a refined form of entertainment. The chamber cantata is a relatively short composition, consisting of a couple of arias with the addition of one or two recitatives. They were performed in the private ambiances of the noble circles. A performance just needed the instruments of the basso continuo (harpsichord, cello, and if wanted for example a lute) and of course an excellent voice.

Bach’s Musical Offering, one of the most fascinating works in music history, still raises questions even after countless interpretations and performances. Composed three years before his death, it embodies everything that makes Bach so captivating: magnificent music that is consummate in all parameters, hidden messages, romantic-transfigured history, enigmatic masterpieces, numerology… and most often it is met by nebulous, apprehensive respect.

After Ensemble Diderot established itself as an internationally renowned ambassador for the masterful late repertoire of the ‘sonata a tre’, having given new polish to well-known major works of the literature as well as adding unknown treasures to the canon, it takes up in this programme the repertoire of the ‘sonata a quattro’. Owing to its appearance shortly before the emergence of the string quartet, the ‘sonata a quattro’ was largely disregarded, yet occupied an important intermediary role between the baroque and the early classical era.

Venice was surely the capital of music and the arts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and one of the most coveted positions in the city was that of maestro di cappella at St Mark’s Basilica.

The music recorded here encompasses a period of around a hundred years. The earliest works come from the time around 1600, which is considered one of the most profound watersheds in musical history. The new expressiveness unleashed above all by Monteverdi’s music was at the same time also potent in the increasingly independent instrumental music. This development is directly connected with the emancipation of the violin and its marvelous cantabile and virtuoso possibilities. When the composers started to make the individual sections of the ricercar into independent contrasting movements, and accordingly separated them from each other also in terms of tempo, the transition to a cyclical manner of formation, that is to say, to a stringing together of independent movements, was initiated and a meaningful musical organization adopted as a maxim.