Orient Classical Music

Nominated for a Grammy (2002) for best Classical Album, Orient Occident represents the newest and, more importantly, epic portrayal of historical music to date. Regardless of any award, this album will continue its reputation as the most important record of new music in 2002, for the very fact that in the world of new music, Arvo Pärt is a puritan's feast. On the threshold of being a globally resonating composer, Pärt remains full of powerful ideas in film, stage, oratorio and orchestral music. Pärt's talent surmises the infinite variety of spiritual symbolism. He is a composer deeply rooted in the ancestrally religious past of his native Estonia. Further removed from Roman Catholic preaching, the Eastern European Orthodox church took to a more enlightening approach―renunciation. Pärt has, indeed, spent much of his time clarifying his search for richness in life's meaning. His work is as timeless as the art of work is meaningless. This meaningless struggle has dispirited Pärt's yearning soul, and with his newest music we are drawn to his misty, remote retreat. In Orient Occident, not only does Pärt recreate a shameless force of magnitude as a great work (three great works to be exact: "Wallfahrtslied", "Orient & Occident", and "Como Cierva Sedienta"), he has reorganized his approach making this change a revelatory turn from past familiar traits. Having rediscovered himself half dozen times before this year, Pärt introduces a lustrous version of his suffering, and a handsomely classical departure than previously heard. Pärt's climactic reinvention of his artistic path makes this album a sumptuous account of a composer charged with a silent worship.

"It was in the 18th century that the seraglio first excited Western European imagination, not least as a result of the Arabian Nights, which, first published in Europe in 1704, owed its immense and immediate popularity to its combination of the most daring intellectuality and consummate sensuality. With YEHUDI (the Ottoman word for Jew), L'Orient Imaginaire seeks to revive the centuries-old tradition of Jewish music at the court of Constantinople.
THE ANCIENT ORIENT, a land of vivid fantasies, fairy tales and legends. Throughout time, crusaders, adventurers, poets and lovers have all sought to unlock its languishing mysteries in order to gaze upon such a forbidden and unattainable world. In the end, they could only perceive the vision - the Orient of the imagination.".

For his entire life, Reynaldo Hahn was labeled as a composer of salon music, a lightweight, whose compositions were written to satisfy the academic tastes of social circles in the Belle Époque and during the period between the two wars. Luckily however, in recent years, a handful of performers and publishers have allowed us to discover the incredible diversity of his eclectic and enchanting work. While not widely known, his piano music is in fact one of the most original aspects of his talent. The outstanding recordings presented in this boxed set of four CDs should help in banishing those long held prejudices.

Celebrated as the European electronic music community's premier ambassador, composer Jean Michel Jarre elevated the synthesizer to new peaks of popularity during the 1970s, in the process emerging as an international superstar renowned for his dazzling concert spectacles…

Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI - Orient-Occident II: Hommage a la Syrie (2013) {Alia Vox AVSA9900}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 411 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 183 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 207 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2013 Alia Vox | AVSA 9900
Classical / World Music / Medieval

The first volume of Orient Occident - released in 2006 - turned out to be a landmark in Jordi Savall's discography. For the first time, the maestro explored an extra-European repertoire, demonstrating the same musicological expertise he had shown with composers like Marin Marais. The album soon became a best seller. The second volume in this exploration focuses on Syria, alternating instrumental and vocal pieces. Musicians from Syria, Lebanon and Israel play alongside Hesperion XXI and illustrate the artistic and humanist process we have come to expect from Jordi Savall.

Marie Keyrouz - Chants sacrés de l'Orient
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 224 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Harmonia Mundi # HMA 1951497 | Country/Year: France 2001, 1994
Genre: Classical | Style: Sacred

Like "Chant Byzantine" before it, this recording is superb, and Sr. Keyrouz's vocal performance is stellar–almost without peer. The singing is crystal clear, and the conviction and love felt for the subject of each hymn, carries through her voice to the listener.

Dimitrie Cantemir - Istanbul: The Book of Science of Music
Hespèrion XXI / Jordi Savall - Gursoy Dincer, Lior Elmaleh & Montserrat Figueras
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 348 MB | Full Artwork: 726 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Alia Vox # AVSA9870 | Country/Year: Spain 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, World Classical

“This is a typical Alia Vox Hesperion release: sumptuously packaged, richly illustrated, and supported by edifying scholarly notes about the music and its historical context. It's recorded in clear yet atmospheric sound…In addition to the late Montserrat Figueras, there is wonderful singing by the Israeli Lior Elmaleh ad the Turk Gursoy Dincer.” ~BBC Music Magazine