This new project is a Tribute to Erasmus (1466-1536), a Dutch Renaissance scholar, known as the 'Prince of the Humanists'. Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament and also wrote 'In Praise of Folly', 'Handbook of a Christian Knight' and many other works. Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation; but while he was critical of the abuses within the Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melancthon and continued to recognise the authority of the Pope. His middle of the road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps. Jordi Savall regards him as a model of wisdom and tolerance.
If you like attractive, expertly performed music for plucked strings, then these original compositions and arrangements of Italian renaissance works for chitarrone, chitarra spagnola (five-course Spanish guitar), and arpa doppia (double harp) will surely delight. Every work here is pleasant and tuneful–a few even aspire to greater musical heights. Frescobaldi's Partite Sopra Passacalgli, for example, benefits from Stephen Stubbs and Maxine Eilander's arrangement, which, while sacrificing a measure of the harpsichord's original edge, nonetheless heightens the chromaticism and texture of the evolving fugue.
In this extensive 50-disc set, Brilliant Classics presents 500 years of organ music. The pieces presented here offer a survey of diversity, value, and historical importance. The first portion of the set is devoted to pieces from the early period. Groundbreaking organ composers such as Cavazzoni and De Macque, who developed the capriccio and canzon forms and composed complex counterparts to the periods vocal music, are featured here. The Baroque and Classical eras are represented in this set by the likes of powerhouse composers Mozart, J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Haydn.
A pupil of his uncle Don Angelo Durante, head of the S Onofrio Conservatory in Naples, Francesco Durante established himself as a leading composer of church music, after a period of further study in Rome. He served as primo maestro at the Neapolitan Conservatori Poveri di Gesù Cristo, where his pupils included Pergolesi, later moving to the same position at the S Maria di Loreto Conservatory and finally at S Onofrio. His later pupils included Piccinni.
Durante’s fame as a composer rested on his achievements in the field of church music. His works include Masses, motets, antiphons, canticles, psalms and litanies.