Roland Win

The Cantiones Sacrae are the swan-song of one of the great masters of the motet, crowning his life's work. In them, Orlande de Lassus deploys with sovereign ease the essence of his art. The complex technique of vocal polyphony he employs illuminates the nuances of the text as closely as possible. In these works, we have the ideal balance between 'head' and 'heart' - a feature found in most of the greatest artistic masterpieces. Philippe Herreweghe has long been considered one of the foremost interpreters of the music of Lassus. Here he leads his hand-picked choral ensemble, Concerto Vocale, in definitive readings of these seminal works of the Renaissance choral repertoire.

Ingmar Bergman (1918- 2007) made fifty films, directed more than 150 theatre productions and wrote several books, but the recurrent thread running through his life was music. He often said that if he hadn't become a director he would have wished to become a conductor, and went so far as to claim that ‘film and music are almost the same thing. They are means of expression and communication that go beyond human wisdom and that touch a person’s emotional centre.’ Bergman’s interest in classical music became evident early on in his career. Music in Darkness (1948) is about a pianist who loses his sight in a shooting accident, To Joy (1950) features a violinist who dreams of a solo career and Summer Interlude (1951) takes place at the Royal Swedish Opera.

For many years, Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) was beset by the same malady as Tomaso Albinoni, i.e., that of being recognized primarily for a single work. In Albinoni’s case it was the Adagio (composed by Remo Giazotto, using only a bass line from his countryman); with Pachelbel it was the all-pervading Canon in D which has been recorded so many times that one loses count and in an almost infinite variety of versions, ranging from the composer’s original for three violins and continuo to tuba quartet! However, some have chosen to venture further into the musical legacy left by Pachelbel and therefore uncovered a number of compositions whose quality—while variable and occasionally mundane—is overshadowed by their importance in the development of specific genre, including the sacred cantata.

Fans of Joachim Raff should be interested in this disc, which includes four overtures and his Suite for piano and orchestra, all of which are recorded here for the first time. The orchestral performances with Roland Kluttig leading the Symphony Orchestra of Norrlands Opera are easily as fine as those of the complete symphonies by Stadlmair and the Bamberg Symphony, and pianist Tra Nguyen's performance of the suite is impressive both for its virtuosity and sensitivity.

With Night Passages Martin Fröst fuses a centuries-spanning selection of music, from the famous to the rare, into highly original arrangements for clarinet, bass and piano. With his unusual ensemble he touches the genre of jazz, folk and turns traditional Baroque favorites by Bach, Scarlatti, Handel and Rameau into original arrangements. He also sends greetings from his home country, Sweden, with music by Romantic composer Hugo Alfvén and the traditional Polska from Dorotea. Martin Fröst is widely recognized as an artist who constantly seeks new ways to shape, challenge and rebuild the classical music arena and, together with Miles Davis, the only wind soloist to have received one of the world's highest music honors; the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

Bach contemporaries such as Jan Zelenka (1679-1745) and Johann Pisendel (1687-1755), both of whom spent most of their creative lives at the Dresden court, are enjoying a well-deserved period of “discovery”–and so is Johann Schein (1586-1630), a less-interesting contemporary of Bach’s most illustrious predecessor, Heinrich Schütz, who preceded Bach as Kantor in Leipzig by a little more than a century. Schein’s primary claim to importance is his incorporation of Italian madrigal style into Lutheran church music. But it’s also clear that he was influenced by the big block-chord sound and antiphonal choir scoring favored by Gabrieli and similarly employed by Schütz.

In 1619 Valentini’s Musiche concertate were published as his third book of madrigals, and already by 1626, when he was appointed court music director in Vienna (a post held by him until his death), he had achieved more than just a personal career goal. Just as Lully defined the French national style, Valentini’s manner was identified with the imperial court style.