Contemplations Glassberg Erato

The three Italian choral works on this album cast new light on pre-existing musical material. Corrado Margutti’s Missa Lorca fuses the words of Federico Garcia Lorca with an evocation of Monteverdi’s polyphonic textures to create fascinating sounds, as the two movements from the Mass reveal. Pizzetti’s Messa di Requiem, the first of his great choral compositions, offers a wealth of expressive detail notably the use of Gregorian chant in music of huge range and richness. Lorenzo Donati’s Sicut Cervus fittingly concludes this selection as it threads music from Palestrina into his piece illuminating the past with vivid new colours.

Not surprisingly, Jean-Pierre Rampal’s recordings for Erato during the 1970s – when he was at the top of his career – encompass an immense repertoire, with a special emphasis on discoveries, whether in baroque, classical or romantic flute literature. Still a model today for flutists and flute lovers all over the world, his incomparable sound, spectacular brilliance and fabulous artistry made many albums legendary. Beyond their sheer beauty, the immense joy of music-making they communicate and the excitement they generate make these performances simply unforgettable.

Matteo da Perugia (fl. 1400–1416) was a Medieval Italian composer, presumably from Perugia. From 1402 to 1407 he was the first magister cappellae of the Milan Cathedral his duties included being cantor and teaching three boys selected by the Cathedral deputies. Mala Punica is an early music ensemble led by Pedro Memelsdorff.

France’s leading young harpsichordist performs works by two masters of the French Baroque. No surprises there, perhaps … but the harpsichordist in question is Jean Rondeau and the album is called Vertigo. It conceives the harpsichord in vividly theatrical terms. Vertigo takes its name from a dramatic, rhapsodic piece by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, who, along with Jean-Philippe Rameau, forms the focus of this album. If Rameau (1683–1764) is the better-known composer today, especially admired for such operatic masterpieces as Hippolyte et Aricie and Platée, the younger Royer (1705–1755) was also a major figure in his time, rising to become master of music at the court of Louis XV. Both Rameau and Royer excelled in keyboard music and in works for the stage. As Jean Rondeau says: “These two illustrious composers battled for the top spot at the Opéra.” He describes them as “two magicians, two master architects, amongst the most wildly imaginative and brilliant of their era … Two composers who also tried to capture echoes of grand theatre with the palette offered by their keyboard.