Plinio Fernandez

Brazilian classical guitarist Plínio Fernandes presents his debut album Saudade. Brimming with youthful excitement and enchanting lyricism, the album reveals an artist full of heart and wide-ranging expression. A love letter to his home country, Saudade presents his two passions: the popular songs of Brazil and the classical tradition of Villa-Lobos. The result is an entrancing collection of works for solo guitar featuring duets with Maria Rita, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and Braimah Kanneh-Mason.

Recent scholarship on Luis Misón (Mataró, 1727–Madrid, 1766) demonstrates the growing interest among the musicological community in studying the life and work of one who is an essential composer in the history of Spanish music. Musical historiography has extolled Misón's contribution to the genre of the tonadilla escénica, a genre widely appreciated in his time and which must have had a notable influence on his instrumental music, about which less is known.

History and landscape form the two main elements of a nation, and for the German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus —as Matthew Riley and Anthony D. Smith wrote— “folklorism in nineteenth-century music — which is not the same as nationalism but is related to it— is, compositionally speaking, essentially the same as exoticism: the musical description of a remote and foreign culture”.

In what could easily mistaken for a release on the ECM label, Morning Glory inhabits that crisp minimalist style so familiar to producer Manfred Eicher. Surprisingly enough, this studio recording, with bonus Live In New York disc, is delivered by three of today's most zealous improvisers and outcats. Formed in 2005, the trio's previous release, Aurora (Maya, 2006), began bassist Barry Guy established their improvisation bona fides with saxophonist Evan Parker's intellectual explorations and Mats Gustafsson's noisier ones. Each player also has a dedication to classical and chamber musics and perhaps that is where these compositions and improvisations intersect.

On this new recording, Coro Victoria offers a portrait of Alonso Lobo (1555-1617) through a cross-section of his sacred output (his works in Spanish are all lost). The group also illustrates the variety of interpretative practices of the period. The concluding O quam suavis est Domine is sung by a single soprano while the vihuela accompaniment supplies the remaining five parts. Church choirs sang this music in the liturgy, but minstrels also played it during processions, and there was free traffic between sacred and secular contexts.