Massi i Stefano

Sequana is the tenth album by Franco-Algerian singer-songwriter Souad Massi. If her music was previously coloured with folk and chaabi, the sound palette broadens here as far as the Sahel, the Caribbean and Brazil, with Justin Adams (Rachid Taha, Tinariwen, Robert Plant) on production. Souad Massi continues on her path as a committed, liberated woman singing about the causes close to her heart. Sequana is a collection of ten songs, nine of which were written by her, with the intention of capturing the passage of time and that which we must strive to preserve and pass on. The album draws on a diversity of musical styles – folk, country, rock, calypso, bossa, along with sounds of the Middle East and the Algerian desert.

Francois Couperin, known as ‘le grand’, won renown when, at the early age of 25 in 1693, he was appointed to a high position in Louis XIV’s private chapel. In the following years he compiled the core of his greatest works, the four monumental Pieces de clavecin, which represent the apex of his compositional mastery with a refined use of counterpoint and a galant taste for embellishments and rich, often subtly melancholic characterization. This album features eight preludes from Couperin’s L’Art de toucher le clavecin to create small suites that freely use pieces from the first two books of the Pieces de clavecin.

El Chakracanta, Stefano Bollani’s new dynamic live album with two original works of his for piano and orchestra and two tangos by Ástor Piazzolla and Horacio Salgán.

The laus perennis that the monks every day in their psalmody offer to the Lord, is adorned with hymns, antiphons and responsories; all chants drawn from the ancient gregorian repertory. With this daily practice and custom, the monks become almost the only custodians and specialists of this patrimony of the highest religious, cultural and artistic merit that is gregorian chant. The monks of Montecassino – always faithful cultivators of this venerable chant, proper to the lit- urgy of the Church – with the present CD want to make these melodies, which are an elevated form of prayer, resound also outside of the monastery walls. The recording was completed at the Tomb of St. Benedict and is intended as an affectionate hymn of sons towards their father and master: in fact, a good part of the liturgy of the Solemnity of St.Benedict of the traditional date of March 21 was performed.

18 keyboard sonatas from a little-known yet individual voice in the rapidly developing era between Bach and Mozart: music on the cusp of revolution.

This is an interesting title in the wake of the notion that Stefano Battaglia composed most of these pieces and has performed them on earlier recordings – both solo and with various groups – and that Tony Oxley is such a renowned improviser…

The working relationship between Stefano Scodanibbio and the Arditti Quartet has existed since the mid 80’s. I remember very well looking at his first Quartet ‘Visas,’ which included some very unusual harmonics for the string instruments. These harmonics are very difficult to play and originate from Stefanos’s great command and knowledge of double bass. I suppose in the beginning of our relationship, I needed convincing that these techniques were actually possible on the violin.