Greece Ancient Greek

Four years after the critically lauded Eight Winds the Athens-based Sokratis Sinopolous Quartet returns with the aptly-named Metamodal. A unique band, the quartet subtly sifts a vast pool of influence, its music informed by the players’ experience of folk forms, Byzantine and classical music, and many modes of improvising, including jazz. The combination of Sinopoulos’s lyra, with its yearning, ancient tones, and the sensitive, modern piano of Yann Keerim is particularly beguiling, and the group as a whole has made giant steps since its debut. Metamodal, featuring new pieces by Sokratis and a concluding group improvisation, was recorded at Sierra Studios in Athens, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Recorded at Glyndebourne’s superb new opera house, this lavishly praised production of Rossini’s forgotten and unusual tragic opera has proved to be an unequivocal success. Based on Racine’s Andromaque, this account of the Greek and Trojan love tangle has been set by Graham Vick in the classically-inspired auditorium of an Italian opera house, rather than in ancient Greece. The set designs, with their striking colours, forms and lighting are as if created especially for the small screen.

Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI - Bal-Kan - Miel et Sang (2013) {3CD Set Alia Vox AVSA 9902}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.19 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 552 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 322 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2013 Alia Vox | AVSA 9902
Classical / World Music / Chamber Music

The name of the Balkans has an unusually graphic etymology: having discovered the beauty of this pivotal part of Europe, which stretches from Italy to the Bosphorous, and the ruggedness of its people, who put up fierce resistance to invasion, the Turks chose to describe the region with the words Bal (Honey) and Kan (Blood). Honey & Blood: never was there so apt a metaphor! So much richness and drama packed into such a small area is guaranteed to fire the imagination of historians and artists, especially musicians. Thanks to the magic of an ambitious programme built around the cycles of life, Jordi Savall invites us to travel the length and breadth of a region which has always had more than its share of human and historical drama. 230 minutes of music scan the full range of human emotions illuminated by 1001 different musical traditions, all of which nevertheless spring from a common source. "The future belongs to those with the longest memory", wrote Nietzsche. Once more, Jordi Savall brilliantly demonstrates that music is a key component of the collective memory that enables us to face our future. This lavishly documented CD-Book, translated into 12 languages, is a must for any self-respecting collector.

These seldom-heard Schubert lieder—setting verses by German poets including Schiller and Goethe—reflect the Romantic-era’s artistic obsession with the classical myths and literature of ancient Greece. The resulting songs and duets reveal levels of fantasy and nobility rarely found among Schubert’s nearly 700 lieder.