Furiosa

The works of the theorbist Bellerofonte Castaldi and the guitarist Domenico Pellegrini are little known but nonetheless remain fascinating to their performers today, as they not only give clear proof of fertile musical imagination but also raise many questions about how they should be performed. Although Castaldi was the first to praise the innovative style of his friend Monteverdi, his works are marked by a strong Renaissance spirit. Castaldi and Pellegrini chose not only the most classical forms (dances, courantes, galliards) but also the most archaic (branles, batailles, canzoni). Lutenist, theorbist and baroque guitarist Albane Imbs now presents her first solo album after having founded her own ensemble, Les Kapsber'girls and played in ensembles led by Jordi Savall, François Lazarevitch, Raphaël Pichon and Rolf Lislevand, the great Norwegian lutenist/theorbist who was her teacher. Here, Imbs and Lislevand perform Castaldi’s Capricci a due stromenti, the only example of music written for a duo of theorbo and tiorbino, this latter being a miniature theorbo conceived and played by Castaldi himself.

At the time of his death in 2010, Almeida Prado was one of Brazil’s most internationally admired composers, one who created music of unique sonority and colour, rooted in his native country. In Aurora (‘Dawn’) he employs his newly developed ‘transtonality’ to radiant effect, while the Concerto Fribourgeois features a collage technique. In his Piano Concerto No. 1 Almeida Prado explores a cogent structure in which the soloist opens up, rips apart or transforms the theme and variations, in a work that is both grandiose and luminous.