Revengers Tragedy (2002)

Anton Fils, dessen kurzes Leben mit nur 27 Jahren im Jahr 1760 als Cellist der Hofkapelle in Mannheim endete. Schon Zeitgenossen wie Schubarth haben den frühen Tod dieses hochbegabten und einfallsreichen Komponisten bedauert. Zum Glück für die Nachwelt hinterließ Fils eine stattliche Anzahl sinfonischer Kompositionen: So ist zu hoffen, daß das L’Orfeo Barockorchester und das Label cpo dieser ersten CD noch einige folgen lassen, um den überlieferten Schatz von etwa dreißig Sinfonien dieses Meisters den Musikfreunden zugänglich zu machen.

"Here to Stay" is a song by New Order and produced by The Chemical Brothers. It was released as a single in 2002, and reached number 15 in the UK Singles Chart.
Rising from the ashes of the legendary British post-punk unit Joy Division, New Order triumphed over tragedy to emerge as one of the most acclaimed bands of the 1980s; embracing the electronic textures and disco rhythms of the underground club culture many years in advance of its contemporaries, the group's pioneering fusion of new wave aesthetics and dance music successfully bridged the gap between the two worlds, creating a distinctively thoughtful and oblique brand of synth pop appealing equally to the mind, body, and soul.

The musical reconstructions industry keeps gathering pace, but few works have attracted as much attention as Mahler's 10th Symphony. Joe Wheeler (who died in 1977) was a brass-playing British civil servant with a passion for Mahler. This completion (itself in an edition by the conductor here, Robert Olson) uses the leaner orchestration of the composer's later years. But does it sound Mahlerian? Certainly more so than Remo Mazzetti's 1997 version, but neither caps Deryck Cooke's acute sense of authentic detail and color in his legendary edition.

This CD from 2002 delivers 68 minutes of dense electronic music by Detlef Keller (whose frequent collaborations with Mario Schönwälder have made the pair's music a mainstay in the European electronic music genre and concert scene). Here, we get to hear Keller's solo accomplishments, which are purely and respectfully cut in the Berlin School of Electronics mode. Densely layered textures emerge from darkness, drenched with somber sentiments and languid tonalities. The music gradually evolves power and structure with vibrating pulsations that lend rhythm, while the keyboard cycles accelerate with sportive determination. Light and airy tuneage grows more mature with each turn, becoming almost frenzied by the time E-perc appears to lend complexity to the driving sequencing. This release features only three tracks (two of which exceed 25 minutes each), allowing the melodies to flourish to incredible intensity.

Mike Sanchez and Eric Mouquet of Deep Forest have always been musical anthropologists, sampling the sounds of other cultures (Pygmy tribes of Cameroon, Gypsies of Eastern Europe, Cuban street musicians, to name just a few) and swirling them into their own ambient dance pop. On this 2002 release the French duo revisits some old samples and also brings in Turkish chant, Japanese pop, and Indian vocals. They introduce startling new elements as well: heavy electric guitars, many lyrics written in English, and a live drummer replacing the programmed rhythm tracks of their previous recordings.
Many of the lyrics here concern environmental issues and warn of the impending dangers of soullessness…

Giovanni Battista Sammartini was undoubtedly one of most important musicians of early 18th-century Italy. The first performance of Memet took place in 1732, when the composer was just over thirty years old. The plot complies with the enlightened music’s widespread taste for the middle-eastern world, while the structure is that of a tragedy in three acts with five characters (Memet, Solimano, Irene, Zaide and Demetrio) and without choir. The quality of the music is certainly high, thanks to Sammartini’s mature and effective orchestration and to the variety of his melodic inventiveness - quite remarkable in some solo episodes - which spans from cantabile to agility passages of virtuoso difficulty. A world première recording that is a must for opera lovers.

"Jephte" was Monteclair's second and final stage work, a lyric tragedy written when he was 65 and apparently the first Biblical opera produced in France since the mystery plays. The influences on Rameau's stage works music are readily apparent: the canny use of orchestral color for dramatic purposes, vivid musical characterization, infectiously lively dance music, and, above all, inspired and stirring choral writing.