Outhere Music

The word parlando contains several ideas that I would like to explore in this recording, as it unites the concepts of musical discourse, of speech, of narration, and of sharing.

The scandalous composer Carlo Gesualdo, Principe di Venosa, was also an excellent lutenist extolled by his contemporaries. At the end of the sixteenth century he received the first two prototypes of the archlute from his colleague Alessandro Piccinini in Ferrara, one of which he kept. In the absence of music for the lute by this composer of genius, Bor Zuljan has imagined the sound world of the prince’s archlute: a kaleidoscope of fabulous and extreme sonorities on this extravagant instrument, from transcriptions of his vocal and instrumental music to the astonishing chromatic compositions of the composers he is thought to have encountered in the course of his turbulent life. Includes works by C. Gesualdo, A. Piccinini, J. H. Kapsberger, P. P. Melli, C. Saracini etc.

collectif9, well-known for its innovative programming and its unique arrangements of the classical repertory, here tackles the music of Debussy, following a first recording devoted to Mahler (ALPHA770). With Clair de lune , La Mer and Des pas sur la neige , the Montreal collective invites us into a sumptuous theatre of shadows and waves: ‘Could we, as nine string players, perform Claude Debussy’s La Mer and do it justice? In a musical style where timbre and colour are paramount, attempting to interpret this emblematic work seemed outrageous; but come to think of it, we like a challenge. This is certainly a reinterpretation. Being fewer in number allows us to otherwise reveal a rich rhythmic interplay already present in the work while shedding new light on the balance of voices and harmonies.’ A work by composer Luna Pearl Woolf completes the programme: Contact, ‘a sonic view into the underwater world of beluga whales in the St Lawrence Estuary’.

The classical decoder! Clément Lebrun is a born pedagogue: in just a few words, this inspired all-rounder makes the greatest works of classical music accessible… In this programme intended for all ears, he tells the story of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique , movement by movement, with the enthusiastic participation of the Orchestre de Paris (conducted by Quentin Hindley), which we also hear perform the work in its entirety under the direction of its eminent former music director Paavo Järvi. Classical is Fantastic!

Flanked by a spectacular cast featuring the role debuts of Nicky Spence (named ‘Personality of the Year’ by BBC Music Magazine in 2022) and Simona Šaturová, the conductor Ben Glassberg (Music Director of the Opéra de Rouen Normandie) once again demonstrates his Mozartian temperament. This late masterpiece (written at the same time as Die Zauberflöte) places his musical genius at the service of a plot centred on the complexity of emotions, passionate love and the absurd disaster of betrayal.

During his long life, the priest, nobleman, poet, and painter from Rome, Ermenegildo del Cinque (1700–73) wrote over 100 sonatas for two cellos and eighteen pieces for three cellos. Although he was a dilettante di musica, he was the most prolific composer of cello music of all time. Yet despite the fact that he also composed cantatas, a serenata and some sacred music, and was a renowned cellist in Rome, he remains virtually unknown today, even among cellists. This recording, made in the theatre of the Palazzo Altemps in Rome where del Cinque often performed, rescues some of these extraordinarily beautiful compositions from oblivion.

Barthold Heinrich Brockes wrote a libretto on the Passion of Christ – based on the account in Matthew’s Gospel – which was set to music by many composers of his time, including Reinhard Keiser, Georg Philip Telemann and George Frideric Handel. It is Handel’s version of the latter that the period-instrument ensemble Arcangelo has chosen to present here. Under the direction of Jonathan Cohen, these specialists in the Baroque repertory are joined by the voices of Sandrine Piau, whose numerous Handel recordings are regarded as a benchmark, the tenor Stuart Jackson and the baritone Konstantin Krimmel, recently revealed in a debut recital for Alpha (Saga, ALPHA549). Together they resurrect the operatic splendour of a work that was first performed in 1719 and is thought to have influenced numerous passages of J. S. Bach’s St John Passion, written a few years later.

Some of the Italian musicians who came to London to ‘make their fortunes’ found themselves influenced by the Celtic lands and their rich tradition of folk music. They were in their turn admired and sometimes even copied by their counterparts in the British Isles. This recording shows the outcome of that encounter. Lorenzo Bocchi was probably the first Italian cellist to settle in Edinburgh, in 1720. Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) arrived in Dublin in 1733. Since 1714 he had been resident in London, where he performed with Handel, but his passion for art dealing landed him in prison. The Earl of Essex then took him under his protection in Dublin, where he swiftly acquired a high reputation. In 1749 he published in London a collection of songs and tunes arranged as sonatas for several instruments combined with a treatise that gives us much useful information on how to play this music.

Reinoud Van Mechelen and his ensemble A Nocte Temporis continue their ‘Haute-Contre Trilogy’ with Rameau’s favourite singer, Pierre de Jéliote, probably the finest haute-contre in history. (Reminder: this is a high tenor voice, not to be confused with the countertenor!) Rameau wrote an enormous amount of music for Jéliote, who was not only a singer but also a guitarist, a cellist and even a composer. The album pays tribute to this native of the Béarn region, who was born in 1713 and died at the ripe old age of eighty-four, with a selection of airs by Rameau (from Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Platée, Castor et Pollux, Les Boréades) but also by Dauvergne, Colin de Blamont, Mondonville, Rebel and Francoeur. Though some are well known, others are much more rarely performed today.

"The harpsichord maker of the greatest eminence… was Joannes Daniel Dulcken". With this quote from Charles Burney, Dulcken stands as one of the most important Flemish harpsichord makers of the 18th century in the tradition of the Ruckers-Couchet dynasty of the previous century. This recording explores the sound the magnificent single-manual Dulcken harpsichord from 1747, now in the collection of the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp on permanent loan at the Museum Vleeshuis. Korneel Bernolet proposes an imaginary Grand Tour of the year 1747, with music written in or around the year the instrument was built; as if a Flemish harpsichordist of the time put some first publications of foreign works on the music stand of the Antwerp harpsichord and started to play.