Kairos 2023

"Janárceková's intellectually unpretentious expressionist music never runs the risk of becoming cliche-infected: her will to express herself and her awareness of fragmentariness combine in a subtle sensuality of sound. At every moment the music seems to be 'appropriate': far removed from triviality, and away from fashionable contemplative platitudes." (Dirk Wieschollek) The Slovak Quasars ensemble's conductor Ivan Buffa also doubles as the piano soloist with the Bamberg Symphony in the piano concerto of Viera Janárceková, who surely must be counted as one of the most distinguished female voices in today's European composition landscape.

Works by the famous theorbo virtuoso Kapsberger have often been recorded, but little space has so far been given to repertoire drawn directly from manuscript sources. Kapsberger maintained a privileged relationship with his city of birth throughout his life. The Venice of Willaert, Gabrieli and Monteverdi, however, is not just a magnificent past: it is still alive today and continues its musical tradition in the so-called Second Venetian School of Malipiero, Maderna, Nono and whose most recent protagonist is Claudio Ambrosini (1948-), winner of the Prix de Rome and the Leone d'Oro at the Venice Biennale, whose works have already been recorded, among others, on the Kairos and Stradivarius labels. Kapsberger, Secret Pages reveals an astonishing instrumental challenge between lesser-known works by Kapsberger in which we admire ideas and creative intuition, and Ambrosini's unpublished works, which contain equal amount of creativity and unexpected possibilities for the instrument.