The Unknown Known (2013)

The Brabant Ensemble continue their investigation into unknown jewels of the Low Countries Renaissance, researched by their director Stephen Rice and recorded with equal amounts of passion and erudition by the young singers of the group.

Piet Blank and Jaspa Jones - the producers known worldwide. For two they have let out already many albums and tens magnificent singles, reliably having fixed in world history of dancing music. Their hits more than once appeared at tops of charts, and each new album stably got to number 50 of the best to Germany. The first release which has left in 2003 of an album "Relax: Edition One" to a descent has occupied 22 place in charts of Germany, and a chill-miss the version of track Pet Shop Boys "Love Comes Quickly" from this album became the present hit.

Francis Poulenc was the best-known composer of the iconoclastic group Les Six, and his reputation for blending sophistication and flippant humor in his songs and concert music made him something of an enfant terrible. Yet the deaths of several close friends and a visit to the Black Madonna of Rocamadour in 1936 brought about soul-searching and a fresh commitment to the Catholicism of his youth.

Japanese original release. Special box set release from The Doors contains 28 tracks total, including 17 ones available as CD format for the first time. EP covers faithfully replicate the ones released from Victor from 1967 to 1972.

In the famous Preface to Alceste (1767), Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi posited a new direction for opera. They spoke of moving beyond Baroque forms, of striving for a new naturalism in opera. They wanted, in Calzabigi's lovely phrase, to liberate the language of the heart. Taken from the height of this Reform period, the arias on this disc reveal composers exploring and experimenting, at struggle and at play, as they create the new forms that bring to opera the noble simplicity of the Classical era.

Metronome announces a new CD and download release of “Confidences Galantes” of the music of Robert de Visée for theorbo performed by Fred Jacobs. Robert de Visée was a court musician and composer for Louis XIV and a member of the King’s personal chamber ensemble “La Chambre du Roi” along with Francois Couperin, Marin Marais, and Antoine Forqueray. In 1716 he published his “Pièces de Théorbe” after more than thirty years service in the king’s service. He is documented as performing at the royal bedside.