Monika 16

Various vocalists and lutenists specializing in the late Renaissance have constructed artificial tours of the European continent, but soprano Monika Mauch and lutenist Nigel North rely here on an original source to do the same thing. They emerge with a superior product in every way. The original source in question is the book whose cover text is reproduced on the back cover of the CD box: Robert Dowland's A Musical Banquet, published in London in 1610. Robert Dowland was John Dowland's son, and he had a lot of help in this enterprise from his famous father.

Praise of the beauty of nature and eternal life are the subjects of the sacred poems by B. H. Brockes which Handel set to music in his "Nine German Arias". In these nine pieces for soprano and a small group of instruments, to be chosen at will, Handel drew in many places on music from his own operas, with the voice part in the German arias adapted to be less virtuosic and more deeply expressive. The "Three German Arias", recorded for the first time on this CD, by Johann Mattheson, which were formerly attributed to Handel, are a real discovery for the repertoire. The soprano Monika Mauch is accompanied in her beautiful interpretation of the arias by the specialist ensemble L'arpa festante.

The delightfully unusual disc Alla turca takes its initial inspiration from the failed 1683 siege of Vienna by the Turks and never looks back. The music explored here belongs to the Holy Roman Empire of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, an empire that celebrated both the arms that held back the Islamist hordes, and the more gentle arts of music that several Emperors personally studied. Alla turca brings a seldom-heard Baroque repertory to life in vivid musical color.

Motetten und Sonaten des 1626 in Clusone bei Bergamo geborenen Komponisten (gestorben 1690) stehen auf dem Programm dieser CD aus der Reihe 'UNICA'. Zu hören sind die Sopranisten Monika Mauch, die sich auf die Interpretation Alter Musik spezialisiert hat und bereits mit vielen renommierten Alte-Musik-Ensembles gearbeitet hat, sowie 'Les Cornets Noirs'. Die jungen Musiker beschäftigen sich - sowohl von der musikwissenschaftlichen Seite als auch von der Aufführungpraxis her - in erster Linie mit Werken italienischer und deutscher Komponisten des 17. Jahrhunderts. Musiziert wird in einer festen Besetzung (zwei Zinken, zwei Violinen, Violoncello und Orgel), zu der je nach Programm auch Sänger und weitere Instrumentalisten dazukommen.