Anjou

Margherita d’Anjou is the fourth of Meyerbeer’s six Italian operas. Although he is often accused of imitating Rossini, this engaging opera shows how Meyerbeer uses the musical conventions of the time to forge his own musical style. With this score he challenged the orchestra of La Scala, one of the best in Italy, to its technical limits. New and exciting effects are heard in the orchestration of Margherita d’Anjou – ideas that would surface again in Dinorah, almost 40 years later. For this recording Opera Rara fields another extraordinary cast with the gifted soprano Annick Massis in the title role.

Ambient power duo Anjou's sophomore statement continues in the vein of their 2014 debut, unfurling a full hour of mesmeric synthetic drift and veiled melodic undertow. Comprised of Mark Nelson (of pioneering post-rock experimentalists Labradford and Pan·American) and Robert Donne (of Labradford, Aix Em Klemm, Cristal) , the group work largely in long-form suites of sound, alternately spacious and dense. The new LP's six pieces embrace flux and ambiguity: drones swell and shudder, hushed currents of noise glitch and dissolve, atmospheres congeal and liquify. As with the participants' prior projects, Anjou evoke a shadowed, mysterious mood, variously melancholy and transcendent. The album is an accumulation of craftsmanship and experience, blurred forms traced in light and fog.

Margherita d’Anjou was Giacomo Meyerbeer’s fourth opera in Italian and his first real success. After an absence from the stage of about 150 years, it returned at the 43rd Festival della Valle d'Itria in an outstanding production. Director Alessandro Talevi’s ironical setting - where the War of the Roses takes place at the London Fashion Week - is perfectly matched by the elegant direction of Fabio Luisi with the Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia. The opera, which belongs to the semi-serious genre, moves from the warlike tones of Act One to the idyllic ones of Act Two, where both female protagonists appear: the queen, a soprano, and the wife, a contralto; both seek the love of an heroic tenor equally daring in battle and in music.

Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI - Estampies & Danses Royales: Le Manuscrit du Roi ca.1270-1320 (2008) {Alia Vox AVSA 9857}
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© 2008 Alia Vox | AVSA 9857
Classical / Medieval

Vigorous and colourful medieval dances revealed by Jordi Savall! The Estampie is a medieval dance consisting of four to seven sections, called puncta, each of which is repeated (in the form aa, bb, cc, etc…).The more widely accepted etymology relates it to stamper, to stamp the feet. Illuminations and paintings from the period seem to indicate that the estampie involves fairly vigorous hopping. The earliest reported example of this musical form is the song "Kalenda Maya" (track 3), supposedly written by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (1180-1207) to the melody of an estampida played by French jongleurs. In this irresistible album, Jordi Savall explores a Royal manuscript from the French National Library.

Iannis Xenakis - Oresteïa - Ensemble de Basse-Normandie, Spiros Sakkas et al. (1990) {Salabert Actuels SCD8906 rec 1987}
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© 1987, 1990 Salabert Actuels | SCD8906
Classical / Modern Classical / Experimental / Avant-Garde / 20th Century

Oresteïa [1966] for children's choir, mixed choir and instrumental ensemble, for solo baritone and percussionist soloist on Greek texts from Aeschylus. Kassandra is an independent work, but it is obligatorily interpreted when one plays Oresteïa (which includes three other parts: Agamemnon, Choéphores, Euménides). Spiros Sakkas gives an unheard of interpretation, alternating head and chest. Because the soothsayers are always double beings, between reason and delirium.

Bill Harris - Complete Fifties Sessions (1957) {2CD Set, Lone Hill Jazz LHJ10252 rel 2008}
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© 1957, 2008 Lone Hill Jazz | LHJ10252
Jazz / Bop / Swing / Trombone

This double CD collection comprises the only three albums Bill Harris recorded under his own name throughout his extended career. In the 40s, during the 78 r.p.m. era, Harris had made just four short sessions under his own name and after the LPs presented here, he would never again record a session of his own until his death on August 21, 1973. These three amazing albums include some real big names like Ben Webster, Jimmy Rowles and Red Mitchell.

Ensemble Perceval - Manuscrit Du Roi: Trouvères & Troubadours (1993) {Arion ARN68225}
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© 1993 Arion | ARN 68225
Classical / Medieval / Early Music

he Manuscrit du Roi was recorded in 1992 by the Ensemble Perceval, and was published in 1993 by Arion. The Manuscrit du Roi or Chansonnier du Roi ("King's Manuscript" or "King's Songbook" in English) is a prominent songbook compiled towards the middle of the thirteenth century, probably between 1255 and 1260 and a major testimony of European medieval music. It is currently French manuscript no.844 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It is known by various sigla, depending on which of its contents are the focus of study: it is troubadour manuscript W, trouvère manuscript M, and motet manuscript R. It was first published by French musicologist Pierre Aubry in 1907 ("Les plus anciens textes de musique instrumentale au Moyen Age").