Time Out Lisbon

When one thinks of free improvisations, it is often of high-energy barrages of sound or esoteric sound explorations. The Lisbon Improvisation Players, a quartet/quintet (cellist Ulrich Mitzlaff is on the final two of the six selections) whose best-known member is trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez, plays a different type of free jazz. Not shying away from melodies, tonality and rhythms, the group develops all three as the music progresses. The results are consistently fascinating as the musicians literally create music out of thin air…

The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 will be the 63rd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It will take place for the first time in Portugal following the country's first victory at the 2017 contest in Kiev, Ukraine with the song "Amar pelos dois", performed by Salvador Sobral. The contest will be held at the Altice Arena in Lisbon and will consist of two semi-finals on 8 and 10 May and a final on 12 May 2018. The three live shows will be hosted by Filomena Cautela, Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah and Catarina Furtado. Forty-three countries will participate in the contest, equalling the record of the 2008 and 2011 editions. Russia will return after their absence from the previous edition, and for the first time since 2011, no country will be withdrawing from the contest.

Portuguese music enjoyed its most spectacular flowering in the early seventeenth century. Many of the greatest composers were gathered in the capital Lisbon, and this was a period when many Portuguese musicians also made their careers in Spain, which was then linked to Portugal politically. This recording presents masterpieces of Portuguese polyphony from Lisbon and Granada brought to light by the choir’s director, Owen Rees. The Lisbon composers represented are Duarte Lobo (chapelmaster at the Cathedral), Pedro de Cristo (chapelmaster at the Monastery of São Vicente), and Manuel Rodrigues Coelho (organist at the Royal Chapel).

Baron von Dittersdorf’s attractive personality and inventiveness as a composer shines through in every movement of the three charming symphonies featured on this world première recording. Composed in the 1780s around the time of his famous ‘Ovid’ Symphonies, the three symphonies included here abound in brilliant orchestral writing and quirky, infectious melodies.