The brainchild of Kevin Dodson, a former architect of the cult progressive rock band Madrigal, The Madrigal Project seeks to breathe new life into the progressive rock genre with ambitious songwriting, high production values and a stellar lineup of all-star musicians. The debut album '11th Hour' features an impressive roster of guest musicians, each bringing their unique individual talents to the project. The music on ‘11th Hour’ is inspired by legends like Gentle Giant, Peter Hammill, Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, Peter Gabriel and combines progressive rock’s classic elements with modern sensibilities. Kevin Dodson’s songwriting, drumming, and vocals are central to the album’s dynamic and unique sound.
The brainchild of Kevin Dodson, a former architect of the cult progressive rock band Madrigal, The Madrigal Project seeks to breathe new life into the progressive rock genre with ambitious songwriting, high production values and a stellar lineup of all-star musicians. The debut album '11th Hour' features an impressive roster of guest musicians, each bringing their unique individual talents to the project. The music on ‘11th Hour’ is inspired by legends like Gentle Giant, Peter Hammill, Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, Peter Gabriel and combines progressive rock’s classic elements with modern sensibilities. Kevin Dodson’s songwriting, drumming, and vocals are central to the album’s dynamic and unique sound.
The extraordinary series of 1998-2006 recordings of the nine published books of madrigals by Monteverdi, from Claudio Cavina and the Italian ensemble La Venexiana, is now available in limited-time and limited-number boxed set form from Glossa. This multi-award-winning cycle set new standards in textual declamation, rhetorical color and harmonic refinement. Also included is the Live in Corsica album of Monteverdi madrigals (2002) and a newly-written essay by original series essayist Stefano Russomanno of which all, along with full texts and translations in PDF form, are also included.
The chamber music of Bohuslav Martinu, more French than Czech, suggests the music Debussy might have written had he lived to experience the full flowering of the neo-classic movement. No one would claim that it has a large emotional range, but for the imaginative use of textures within a restricted environment it's unmatched. The simplest pizzicato seems to carry all kinds of suspense, even as the general mood of the music remains blithe, even sunny in the case of the Sonata for flute and piano, H. 308, written as Martinu waited out World War II on Cape Cod.
The sixteenth-century madrigal, a deceptively simple, whimsical poetic form of no fixed structure, had an elusive quality that was to prove inspirational to generations of musicians; madrigal settings came to form the core of many composers’ outputs and quickly evolved a musical identity independent of their poetic origins.
“Chanson contre raison” (“Song against Reason”) Is the title of a French love song dating back to the days of Guillaume de Machaut. It appeared so symbolic to me that I could not resist the temptation of starting some rumours. However, this motto also entails commitment and rules out every possibility of ‘science-oriented’ rationality. This piece is in fact a kind of ‘Mephisto waltz’, marked by the appropriate compositional consequences. One of the purely instrumental aspects, too, is quite remarkable : two thirds of the oeuvre are played Scordatura (H1 instead of C). This fundamentally changes the ……..
This album is dedicated to the Old Russian professional chant culture, and to those cultures which it was connected with — such as Byzantine, Serbian and Bulgarian. This is the first recording of such a wide cycle of Old Russian chants made in this country. "Madrigal" ensemble introducing chant culture of the Russian 17th century payed much attention to a little known but interesting and artistically valuable direction — partesny and demestveny Chants.