Source: Qobuz.com

In this latest album, Sumrrá makes the inspired exercise of taking perspective and rethinking our own existence through music. The three musicians based in Santiago de Compostela look with new eyes at the "Sapiens Sapiens", the "Inner Space" that lives inside each one of us, or the "Ra", the first Star, the source of all life. They reflect on our eternal position in the "Universal Periphery", or the permanent dance of the "Gravitational Forces". They tell through their music what happened "13.7 billion years later", or why there are seven degrees that separate "Aswan from Alexandria". A result as surprising as it is revealing. Lucid, overwhelming, brilliant 7 Visions … Sumrrá's seventh album is here.

In his five Stanze, composed in 2016, Mauro Montalbetti openly declares his special affinity with the author of Boléro, placing him within the select circle of his greatest loves. What strikes one most is the refined and yet frank way in which this devotion is expressed in the music and is revealed in the writing, in the way it unfolds majestically, so to speak, across the staves and the pages. In other words one is struck not only audibly but also visually by the limpidity with which the five pieces pay homage to their source, namely Maurice Ravel’s Miroirs. Miroirs, that is mirrors. A title that at the time – we are in 1905 – encapsulated the genius with which the composer played with the ambiguities of symbolist and im-pressionist poetics, of the eternal torments concerning the expressive and semantic qualities of music. Because the mirror reflects, represents, but also deceives, creates illusions.

Chet Baker was a primary exponent of the West Coast school of cool jazz in the early and mid-'50s. As a trumpeter, he had a generally restrained, intimate playing style and he attracted attention beyond jazz for his photogenic looks and singing.

On Natura Morta, Sven Wunder is exploring art as a bridge between nature and the human ability to judge and observe in eleven musical compositions with brightly colored textures and an emphasis on vibrant melodies.

Discovered by Michael Talbot in 1973, the 12 sonatas of the Manchester manuscript are generally considered the high point of the composer’s chamber music. They are performed hereby Fabio Biondi, one of the most authoritative Vivaldi performers, accompanied by an allstar continuo group: Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rolf Lislevand, Paolo Pandolfo and Maurizio NaddeoIn his liner notes, Michael Talbot reckons that Vivaldi assembled them to present to Cardinal Ottoboni, the great Roman patron of the arts (portrayed by Francesco Trevisani on the front cover), on the occasion of the cardinal’s visit to Venice, his birthplace, in 1726.

Very little is known today about the personal life of composer Antonio Salieri, if only because he left very few private documents to posterity. An autobiography of the composer, presented to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde among other papers by his grandson Eduard Rumfeld in 1865, is lost. To learn more of Salieri, then, it is necessary to refer to sources such as diaries and letters by close friends. One rewarding source has proved to be the diary of Joseph Rosenbaum, who married the daughter of Salieris teacher Florian Leopold Gassmann and was on friendly terms with the artist for many years. This recording seeks to bring us closer to Salieri the man with works that he composed for performance among friends. They show the composer in quite a different light from the operatic works that he wrote to enhance the prestige of the Viennese court.

Ray Charles. A pioneer for music genres such as soul, jazz, blues, rhtyhm & blues. The man behind iconic songs such as Hallelujah, I love her so, Unchain My Heart and Georgia On My Mind. But also one of the first black and blind musicians to reach a large audience. He did not let his disability hinder him, because Charles became blind at a young age. He was one of the first musicians to be accompanied (often) by a big band. And he is still one of the international artists who has performed the most at 'our' North Sea Jazz Festival. With music and personal anecdotes and stories, the musicians of the Sven Hammond Big Band tell why Charles was and still is a source of inspiration for them.

If the most profound treasures are often the most deeply buried, the journey to uncover them is vital process of discovery. Five years after the 15-minute single “Blodbylgje” signaled the birth of a new, more primordial, and immersive vision after the dissolution of her band L.E.A.F., Nordic dark folk artist Kati Rán has expanded on its oceanic theme for her long-awaited full-length album, “SÁLA”. Embarking on a far-reaching musical and personal travelogue, it’s a reawakening of both the feminine narratives submerged and fragmented within Norse mythology, and the enduring, healing powers held within.

Roland de Lassus (1532-1594) - Canticum Canticorum - Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Leonardo García Alarcón, Ensemble Clematis (2016) {Ricercar Official Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 44kHz/16 bit - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 281 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 157 Mb | Artwork (pdf+jpg) | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Ricercar / Outhere Music | RIC 370
Classical / Renaissance / Choral / Sacred Vocal Music

At the height of the Renaissance, the music of Orlande de Lassus frequently combines the emotion of secular music with sacred compositions. With their erotic connotations, the texts of The Song of Songs are an ideal source for bringing together sacred and profane feelings. Based on his most famous song, Lassus wrote one of his unitary masses: Suzanne un jour. Along with the Magnificat that he composed on De Rore’s madrigal Ancor che col partire, here are two religious compositions of which the themes are borrowed from evocations of amorous turmoil.

Jordi Savall - The Routes of Slavery 1444-1888 (2017) {Alia Vox Official Digital Download AVSA9920}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 691 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 304 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 2017 Alia Vox | AVSA9920
Classical / World Music / Traditional / Vocal Music / Reneissance / Baroque

A homage to the memory of victims of the slave trade. This new multicultural project from Jordi Savall and his musicians on The Routes of Slavery (1444-1888) marks a world first in the history of music and of the three continents involved in the trade in African slaves and their exploitation in the New World, which are brought together through the early music of the colonial period, the musical traditions of Mali and the oral traditions of the descendants of slaves in Madagascar, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. This 'Musical Memoir' is accompanied with historical texts on slavery, beginning with the early chronicles of 1444 and concluding with texts written by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner Martin Luther King shortly before his assassination in 1968.