Siesta Ensemble & Ovidio Gimenez Bassoon Delights

The concertos featured on this CD were discovered under the most unusual cir-cumstances. In 1926, the Salesian fathers, who ran a Piedmontese boarding school, inquired at the National Library in Turin about the value of a manuscript collection they owned...

Klaus Thunemann has been the world's premiere solo bassoonist for the past three decades. His technical mastery of the instrument–he has the facilty of a violinist–is impressive in and of itself, but he brings so much more to these hard-to-find recordings of Vivaldi's elegant concerti.

Pamela Thorby has been recording for Linn for most of the label’s existence, both as ensemble player and soloist. This time she joins Andrew Lawrence-King (except for a few unaccompanied pieces) in a varied program of music of the 16th and 17th centuries. In his notes, the harpist has an explanation for the disc title in the literary use of the garden as a place of earthly delights (Hieronymus Bosch’s allusion) where lovemaking is accompanied by recorders and plucked strings. His essay lucidly explains some of the terminology too often taken for granted in music of this period. Diego Ortiz, in Trattado de glosas of 1553, illustrated three ways of playing music on instruments; hence the program uses three of his examples at the beginning, middle, and end of this program.

This is the fourth release by the BBC Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena, and the discography is going from strength to strength – their recording of orchestral works by Falla was ‘Recording on the Month’ in BBC Music. They are joined on this recording by the bassoonist Karen Geoghegan.

Following their debut album, Belle Epoque, the Orsino Ensemble turns its attention to music from Bohemia. There is a strong tradition of Czech wind playing, and hence a wealth of great repertoire on which to draw. Antoine Reicha was a contemporary (and friend) of Beethoven. His E flat Quintet, published in 1817, demonstrates his harmonic ingenuity and talent for idiomatic instrumental writing.