Eduardo Wagner Aratangy

The »Iguazú« stands for »Big Water« in the native language and flows through southern Brazil before it flows into the Paraná at the border with Argentina. Shortly before the mouth it "says goodbye" with one of the largest waterfalls on earth, in the center of which the Garganta de Diabolo (Devil's Throat) opens up. The Argentinian guitarist (and lutenist) Eduardo Egüez and his international ensemble La Chimera take the diversity of the landscape along the 1,300 km of this river as a model and present South American "classics" from folk to classical, tango, jazz and bossa nova.

Welcome to "Alchemy of Happiness", music for the Museum of Alchemy of Córdoba. You enter a sound space that invites meditation and work. Alchemy, the ancient art of transmuting matter, is also an art of spiritual transformation. The alchemist goes through the same phases as the raw material on which he operates.

Some have likened Herbert von Karajan's "chamber-music approach" to Wagner's Ring cycle in terms of his scaling down or deconstructing the heroic roles. This approach has less to do with dynamics per se than it does with von Karajan's masterful balancing of voices and instruments. He achieves revelations of horizontal clarity, allowing no contrapuntal strand to emerge with an unwanted accent or a miscalibrated dynamic. The texts are unusually pinpointed and distinct, although the singers don't convey the experience and dimension of Sir Georg Solti's cast on London. There are exceptions.

Amadigi di Gaula had its premiere in London in 1715. Its libretto, based on a medieval legend and encompassing such effects as a magically appearing sorceress, reflects the then-fashionable English taste for spectacle in operatic production. Musically, however, the opera is of chamber dimensions, involving just five soloists, and takes in some emotionally intimate moments. In this backward-looking piece – it even ends with a brief ballet – Handel doesn't attempt any structural innovations: the arias and duets are cast firmly in the tripartite da capo format. Still, he finds room for the occasional imaginative touch, as when he uses French-overture gestures in a few of the ritornelli to suggest tragic breadth, or has the two voices in a hitherto contrapuntal duet launch the "B" section in straight thirds.

This is first recording for Challenge Classics by the very highly-rated Al Ayre Español and its conductor Eduardo López Banzo - and the beginning of a longterm partnership. The sacred cantatas performed on this Hybrid SACD are by José de Nebra, the ‘father’ of Spanish opera and Zarzuela.