Les Filles are all from Illighadad, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity or running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside support hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries.
In this recording entitled Enigma Fortuna, the ensemble La Fonte Musica, directed by Michele Pasotti, aims to shed light on the mysterious and eccentric personality of Antonio Zacara da Teramo (1355-1416). A contemporary of Boccaccio, Donatello and Brunelleschi, this composer from the Abruzzi region could almost be likened to a sort of musical Hieronymus Bosch, for the texts he set to music conjure up a ‘topsy-turvy universe’ where the obscene, the imaginary and the grotesque go hand in hand. In his ballata Amor ne tossa he writes ‘Let him understand me who can, for I understand myself’, foreshadowing the proud egotism of the Romantic artists who were to come 400 years after him. With this four-CD set presenting the world premiere of Zacara’s complete works, La Fonte Musica offers us an initial approach to understanding his music. And thereby, through the timeless character of art, to understanding a so-called ‘renascent’ era that seems as ‘topsy-turvy’ as our own.
The ARC Ensemble (Artists of The Royal Conservatory) is among Canada’s most distinguished cultural ambassadors. It focuses on researching and recovering music suppressed under the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century and marginalised thereafter. Exile is generally associated with geographical displacement, but the idea of ‘internal exile’ has long had currency. There was a protracted variety of this exile in the Soviet Union: State oversight of musical style and substance began in the 1920s and persisted until well after Stalin’s death, in 1953. Unlike the Central European composers who were murdered or exiled under National Socialism, and whose music is now being assessed and revived, a great number of the musical casualties of the Soviet era still await serious attention.
The 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw was so thick with talent that even as fine a Chopin interpreter as Aimi Kobayashi did not make the medal stand (she did place in the round of ten). She's an exceptional pianist who brings the power and speed of the piano stars of yore, who often plays Liszt as well as Chopin. On this release of Chopin's preludes, plus a few other Chopin hits, listen to the well-worn Prelude in C minor, Op. 28, No. 20, where the imposing opening chords seem to pulse through the whole work. Kobayashi's passagework in the faster preludes is fleet but never muddy, and where Chopin has embedded a melody, she catches it.