Marié Castle

Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, which has its origins in a novella by E. T. A. Hoffmann, contains some of the best-loved music ever written. But its composer wasn’t very happy with it, perhaps because the plot he was given to work with allowed him to present only a series of dances, losing the moral basis of Hoffman’s surprisingly modern tale, with its messages of inclusivity and what is now called ‘women’s agency’ – here it is the little girl who saves the prince. Hoffmann’s aspirational story continues well after the ballet ends, with the little girl, now grown up, marrying the prince, who is now king.

The fifth concert in our series of “Music from Wolfenbüttel Castle” features performances and recordings of multifaceted cantatas by Georg Caspar Schürmann. Like no other musician before him, Schürmann exercised a comprehensive influence on the Wolfenbüttel court music world during his more than fifty years of service there. During these decades he produced an impressively extensive and richly varied oeuvre: almost thirty operas, numerous table compositions, a Passion, and various church cantatas for large ensembles are documented. In his Christmas cantata “Siehe, eine Jungfrau ist schwanger” we experience Schürmann as a composer of gripping ensemble compositions with finely chiseled fugue subjects. For many years the anonymous New Year’s cantata “Nimm das Opfer unsrer Hertzen” was also ascribed to Schürmann. Although Georg Österreich is now assumed to have been its composer, the opening aria in particular with its highly effective postponement of the resolution of dissonances displays a clear stylistic closeness to Schürmann’s opera arias from this time.

During the third concert in our series Music from Wolfenbüttel Castle in 2017, sacred compositions from the Opus Novum of Daniel Selichius were presented and recorded. Selichius was born in Wittenberg in 1581 and succeeded Michael Praetorius as court chapel master in Wolfenbüttel during 1621-26. His oeuvre includes the twenty-four sacred concertos of his Opus Novum of Sacred Latin and German Concertos and Psalms of David. This collection published in Wolfenbüttel in 1624 was one of the earliest printed collections of fully dimensioned sacred concertos in Protestant Germany. For these concertos we once again have obtained the services of the Weser-Renaissance Ensemble of Bremen under its conductor Prof. Dr.Manfred Cordes. This ensemble specializes in early music and over the decades has produced interpretations of Baroque music regarded as exemplary in this field.

2013 five disc (four CDs + DVD) book/box set. This landmark box set is the ultimate artifact for Lee Hazelwood heads new and old, containing a lavishly packaged, expansive 172-page LP sized hard cover book. But every good book deserves a soundtrack and in this case it comes in the form of a four-CD anthology of the LHI label, along with the never-before-released 1970 film Cowboy in Sweden on DVD. One of the most impressive aspects of the LHI box set is the gorgeous 12' x 12' LP sized book, packed with rare beautiful pictures of Lee, his artists (and the occasional horse). The pages roll out the full story of the LHI label, including interviews with Lee and Suzi Jane Hokum, re-assessments of key Hazelwood albums, and artist profiles for the label's roster, lovingly written by renowned L.A. music journalist/novelist Jessica Hundley. In the illuminating text, a picture of Hazelwood emerges - fiercely talented, brutally independent, a rare, ornery, ruthless and visionary man.

Four CD box set documenting all of Ian A. Anderson's seminal early albums - including lots of rare material. Curated and supported by the artist, Please Re-Adjust Your Time captures an exciting time in British roots music. From gutsy acoustic blues to ground-breaking acid folk, the music sounds as vital today as it did half a century ago. Ian A Anderson is an English folk musician who was a luminary of the late 1960s country blues scene before becoming one of the pioneers of psychedelic/acid folk and founding the now collectable "alternative folk label" Village Thing in the early 1970s. First issued in 1969, 'Stereo Death Breakdown' was credited to Ian Anderson's Country Blues Band, a moniker which hinted at the music therein. Eleven bonus tracks are drawn from Saydisc EPs and Saydisc Matchbox albums. The self-produced Royal York Crescent (1970) album was Ian's first on his new Village Thing label. Here it's joined by three extra recordings from 1969, live at Farnham Folk And Blues Festival and from sessions at Chapel Studios, London. Recorded at Rockfield Studios, A Vulture Is Not A Bird You Can Trust (1971) is now swelled with a quartet of additional sides, again from a studio tenure in Chapel Studios back in 1969. The fourth and final disc is devoted to Ian's final Village Thing album, Singer Sleeps On As Blaze Rages (1972) which is joined by four extra songs, including three previously unreleased the Hot Vultures' demos recorded at Village Thing, Bristol, 1973.