Echo Vocal Ensemble

The acclaimed recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger and her ensemble 1700 team up with famous countertenor Andreas Scholl for this inspiring new album featuring the work of J.S. Bach. The album includes arias from Bach cantatas for alto, a concerto for harpsichord arranged for flute, the cantata BWV 170 “Vergnügte Ruh” and the famed Brandenburg concertos No. 2 and No. 4. Dorothee Oberlinger is one of the most amazing discoveries of recent years, an expressive virtuoso who - quite rightly - received numerous awards while still very young.

Orpheus was able to beguile the gods, humans and wild animals with his song and even soften stones - his ancient legendary figure became a myth.

Bonaventura Aliotti‚ unrepresented in the CD catalogues until now‚ was a Sicilian composer of the middle Baroque‚ born in Palermo around 1640‚ dying some 50 years later. A Minorite friar‚ he worked as organist in Padua and various other Italian cities‚ ending up as maestro di cappella in Palermo. His oratorios‚ of which only four survive‚ seem to have been greatly admired in his time. Il Sansone‚ first performed in Naples in 1686‚ tells the central part of the familiar story of Samson – his seduction and betrayal by Delilah‚ at the bidding of the Philistine Captain and with the help of the allegorical character Inganno (‘Treachery’) and Morpheus‚ god of sleep. It was revised two years later for performance in Modena‚ and the choral music was added; the Modena score‚ as the only surviving source for the work‚ is used here.

Von wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen, stellen die Liedkompositionen Verdis keinen wesentlichen Bestandteil seines musikalischen Schaffens dar. Die meisten Schöpfungen dieser Gattung sind in den Anfangsjahren des Komponisten entstanden, zumeist leichtgewichtige, anmutige Gesangsstücke im Stile Bellinis und Donizettis, es befinden sich darunter aber auch schon die für Verdi charakteristischen Gesänge patriotischen Inhalts. In diesen Frühwerken begegnet man manchmal musikalischen Motiven, die Verdi in seinen Meisterjahren wieder verwendet hat, eine Praxis, die auch von anderen italienischen Komponisten (Puccini ist da ein prominenter Fall) bekannt ist.

This disc contains some sonatas for wind instruments by Johann Sebastian Bach from his years in Weimar (1708-17) and Cöthen (1717-23), having in common – as they have come down to us or as several musicologists have proposed – their being intended for the recorder and/or the oboe. The interchangeability of instrumentation, linked to different creative periods, to practical contingencies, and to the inexhaustible desire for perfection that induced the genius of Eisenach, according to the testimony of his earliest biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, to continually revise his own works, often makes it difficult to go beyond their sterile catalogue dates in tracing their evolution. For this reason an experimental approach was chosen here, to bring back to their presumably original state what today is a handful of works, which were part of a much larger repertory. Chamber music was becoming the composer’s principal occupation in the time period under consideration, which was decisive in the progress of Bach’s career from organist to Konzertmeister (1714) and then to Kapellmeister of a Calvinist court (1717) essentially devoted to the cultivation of secular music.

Giulio Mazzarino, better known as Cardinal Mazarin, played an important part in the dissemination of Italian music in France in the 17th century. From 1643, when he was appointed prime minister, to his death in 1661, he carried out an astute policy in favour of Italian culture, inviting the most famous Italian composers and performers to the French court. This disc presents a number of pieces, mainly by Italian composers, which became well known in France in the 17th century through Mazarin’s support.

Unsurprisingly, it is in the music of the Baroque era – the heyday of the castrato – that French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has captured the attention of music-lovers lovers around the world. The ethereal, but sensuous beauty of his voice, his virtuosity and his sense of style have brought him critical praise, a number of major awards – including, in 2008, Germany’s prestigious Echo-Klassik prize for Male Singer of the Year.

A Christmas programme with a difference: Rory McCleery and his acclaimed consort echo the shepherds’ noels through a motet by Jean Mouton which, astonishingly, remained in the repertoire of the Sistine Chapel for over 100 years after its composition around 1515. So famous already by the middle of the century, when Cristóbal de Morales was engaged as a singer in the papal chapel, that Mouton’s motet would form the basis for a mass by Morales; and, later still, a new motet to the same text by Annibale Stabile. A world premiere recording of the latter work crowns this unique programme, drawn from new performing editions by McCleery himself.

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi invites you to listen to the album Vidi Speciosam - A Lady Mass from the 16th Century - containing pf works dedicated to Mary from Spanish composers performed at the end of the 16th century. The performers are: Capella de la Torre - winner of the ECHO 2016 award in the "band of the year" category, and the vocal group of Tiburtina - a female vocal ensemble founded in 2008 in Prague, specializing in the interpretation of Gregorian chant, medieval polyphony and contemporary music.