Gemma

Of Philip Glass' conventionally scored chamber works, his String Quartet No. 5 is probably the best-known, in part because the Kronos Quartet and the Smith Quartet have given it first-rate recordings, but also because its more traditional approach and neo-romantic feeling hold a special attraction for a broad audience. This five-movement work has Glass' characteristic patterns and pulses, at least as they developed from his hard-edged, amplified minimalism of the 1970s to softer acoustic textures over the course of the 1980s, though the music is much more melodically contoured and expressive. This 2015 release by the Carducci String Quartet adds another title to the work's growing discography, and it is a wonderful performance by musicians who have a strong sympathy for Glass' idiom. It is programmed with the Suite from Dracula, a soundtrack Glass composed for the Tod Browning film, Dracula (1931), and Michael Riesman's arrangement of the Symphony No. 4, "Heroes," here presented as the String Sextet.

This disc presents three vocal pieces for soprano with oboe and basso continuo, interspersed between four trio sonatas for 2 oboes & basso continuo.The first cantata "Mi palpita il cor" was written in England - there are four existing variants, but this presented here is probably the earliest, the date given here as 1717. The theme is typically pastoral, with the singer's amorous affliction, the sorrow and hope of being in love with Chloris. The second vocal piece "Meine Seele hort im Sehen" is one of Handel's nine German da capo arias written around 1724/25 which were never published; they were songs of spiritual devotion rejoicing in God's creation as manifested in the beauty of nature, and not intended for concert performance.

En ce nouveau volume, Opus 111 poursuit son entreprise de découverte de l'oeuvre vivaldien. Le choix de mêler concertos et cantates, opéré déjà dans le précédent volume, se révèle toujours aussi judicieux : c'est en somme une manière de donner à la philologie et au souci archéologique les séductions du concert.