Philips Protech Dst

A limited-edition 55-CD set of legendary and critically acclaimed recordings celebrating the famous PHILIPS heritage.An alliance of great artistry and superb sound. Classic-status albums spanning over half a century of recording and showcasing a wealth of international talent.An unrivaled collection that that embraces all musical genres - from solo piano and chamber music through to large scale choral works and opera. Music that spans more than two centuries of masterworks from Bach Concertos and Schubert Lieder to twentieth-century masterpieces by Stravinsky, Bartok and beyond.

Pepe Romero has played the guitar for as long as he can remember, debuting at the age of seven. His father was the legendary guitarist Celedonio Romero and was his only teacher. Along with his father and brothers Celin and Angel, Romero formed the Romeros Quartet, and riding on the heels of Celedonio's celebrity in Spain, embarked on an international career that made them the most famous guitar ensemble in the world.

The amazing thing isn't that violinist Arthur Grumiaux was such a splendid technician, although his technique was as flawless as Heifetz's. Nor is the amazing thing that Grumiaux was such a distinctive stylist, although one could always tell his performances by the cool intensity of his tone and the passionate restraint of his interpretations.

Peter Philips is the one first-rate English composer from the sixteenth and early seventeenth century who remains largely unknown today, even to specialists. His modern reputation has suffered from a form of musical chauvinism that works to the disadvantage of emigres: since he left England at an early age, never to return, he has been largely ignored by English musicologists, and equally he has been treated as a foreigner by their colleagues in his adopted country, the Spanish Netherlands - now Belgium.

Peter Philips was the most famous English composer of his time, and only Byrd, a generation older, had more compositions published. Much of Philips’s life was spent on the Continent, where he wrote music of intricate, text-conscious colour, both deeply expressive and architecturally powerful. His motets and anthems, whether celebratory, meditative or dramatic, embrace the widest range of feeling and texture. The much-admired Sarum Consort’s disc All the Queen’s Men (8572582) was praised for its ‘energy and aplomb’. (American Record Guide)

The Englishman Peter Philips spent most of his life abroad, and was celebrated all over Europe in his day. Despite this, Philips’s music has been neglected since his death in 1628—of his immense output of vocal music, to this day most people know only a handful of motets from the five-voice Cantiones sacrae (1612). The present recording of half of the companion volume of eight-voice motets seeks to remedy this situation.