Pedro ar

A native of Cuba, Leo Brouwer is universally acknowledged as one of the most challenging and innovative of contemporary composers. This programme brings the guitar into consort with the bandurria, a small lute dating from the 16th century and perennially popular in South America, the combination perfect for expressing the rustic rhythms of Cuban folk style in Música Incidental Campesina. This recording covers a kaleidoscopic range of techniques and emotions, from political martyrdom in Chile to the immense vistas of Brazil. The Sonata para Bandurria was composed for one of the virtuoso performers on this recording, Pedro Chamorro.

There have been two recordings so far of this Requiem by the Portuguese renaissance composer Pedro de Escobar, the other being Requiem , sung by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois directed by Dominique Vellard. The present disc, by the one-voice-per-part ensemble Quodlibet, was recorded in 1989 and reissued in 2005. The group sing with spirit and conviction; their ensemble and blend are not always ideal, but they rise to the occasion as we get to the Requiem itself halfway through the programme. In fact, among the motets and other items we find on the first eight tracks, there are also some lovely things, including a beautiful `Stabat Mater' (track 3) and a splendidly theatrical `Clamabit autem mulier' (A Canaanite woman cried out, track 5), where the ensemble admirably conveys the human drama of this gospel story.

Portuguese composer Pedro de Cristo is nowhere near as familiar as Duarte Lobo or Manuel Cardoso, who may show up on general concerts of Renaissance choral music. Cristo's music was never published and was largely lost to history until some painstaking research work, described in the booklet of this Hyperion release. That is likely to change after this 2022 release by the eight-voice choir Cupertinos, which made classical best-seller charts late that year. The music is lovely, with the limpid, reverential treatment of text found in the works of Cristo's greatest Spanish contemporaries. There are long homophonic stretches in the motets that have a starkly emotional effect. The Missa Salve regina, whose motet exemplar is included, is more thoroughly polyphonic, but Cristo's orientation toward directness and clarity remains. Sample the gorgeous Crucifixus section.

Pedro de Escobar (c. 1465-c.1535) was a composer of the same renaissance generation as Josquin, Isaac, Mouton and De La Rue. He was born in Porto, Portugal but was of Castilian ancestry; his work was in great demand in his time and he spent part of his working life in Spain, much of this in the service of the Catholic Queen Isabella I. His best-known works today are a Requiem Mass (recorded twice so far), a Magnificat setting and a handful of motets, but this present CD brings us the first recording of a complete ordinary Mass setting, simply titled ‘Missa 4v.’

Jordi Savall & Pedro Estevan - La Lira d'Esperia II: Galicia (2014) {Alia Vox AVSA9907}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 430 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 171 Mb
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© 2014 Alia Vox | AVSA9907
Classical / Chamber Music / Medieval

Exactly 20 years ago (in 1994), after several years of research, experimentation and concerts, we recorded our first CD devoted to La Lira d’Espéria, performed on my three early instruments – the Rebec, the Tenor Fiddle and the Rabab (Rabel morisco) – with the indispensable percussion of Pedro Estevan. The idea was to announce the music and instruments featured in the recording using the evocative ancient names of Lyra and Hesperia. It was an obvious choice, as the whole recording was devoted to the medieval repertory for bowed instruments and consisted of music from the various Christian, Jewish and Arabo-Andalusian cultures that existed in ancient Iberia and Italica.

Longtime Pedro Almodóvar collaborator Alberto Iglesias composed the sad and gentle soundtrack to Talk to Her, the Spanish director's 2002 meditation on loss and loneliness. Aside from the violin and guitar-accented score, there are five vocal tracks sprinkled throughout, most notably "Cucurrucucú Paloma," which is performed by Tropicalia legend Caetano Veloso (who also sings it in the movie). Almodóvar has described this rendition, which he first heard live in Brazil while in support of 1995's The Flower of My Secret, as "stylized, heart-rending, and intimate." Another highlight is the lovely flamenco-style track "Raquel," from Cape Verdean string player Bau (Rufino Almeida), who leads the band that has backed Césaria Évora for the a number of years (and is featured prominently in the film's trailers). The prolific Iglesias, who has won several Goya Awards for his film work, has also composed for all of Basque director Julio Medem's films, from 1991's Vacas through 2001's Sex and Lucia.

Pedro Aznar is a best-selling Argentine singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is a musical polymath equally versed in rock, jazz, and folk, and is also a published poet. A seminal part of the Argentinian rock scene during the 1970s and '80s, he gradually succeeded in transforming his sound to embrace different genres and became a successful jazz singer, saxophonist, and second guitarist in the Pat Metheny Group for three albums. In addition, Aznar is also an esteemed soundtrack composer, a first choice for many directors across Latin America…

Instead of focusing on a single work or repertory, Jordi Savall, together with his wife Montserrat Figueras and their children Arianna and Ferran Savall, here offers what he terms "a highly personal selection of the music that has moved us by its tenderness and beauty, as well as its ability to promote dialogue and harmony." Thus we have melodies and mostly improvisatory instrumental pieces from a variety of traditions, opening with an absolutely delectable love song by the thirteenth century Galician-Portuguese troubador Martin Codax, and proceeding through music from Afghanistan, Morocco, Sephardic Judaism, France, Mexico, and the inspiration of the various Savalls themselves, among various other sources.

Jazz and flamenco first crossed paths not in Spain, but in the USA when Miles Davis and arranger/composer Gil Evans recorded “Sketches of Spain” in November 1959 and March 1960. It became one of the most successful jazz albums of all time. And the jazz musicians in Spain? They attempted to emulate – as did their colleagues world-wide – the American model. Jazz stood for open-mindedness; national folklore was thought of as too parochial. Spanish saxophonist Pedro Iturralde was the only musician who, under the influence of “Sketches of Spain”, added a couple of flamenco melodies to his repertoire as he toured Europe accompanied by two Germans and a Swiss. That’s why Joachim-Ernst Berendt sought him out to play at the 1967 Berlin Jazz Festival. With the festival’s motto “Jazz Meets the World”, Berendt was looking for a jazz-flamenco combination to fit the bill.