Rachmaninov Liturgia Crisostomo

The reputation of 'San Giovanni Battista', by far Alessandro Stradella’s best-known and most recorded work, has so far overshadowed the rest of his surviving oratorio output, amounting to a total of six works. Unlike the most representative masterwork, San Giovanni Crisostomo, here released for the first time, was conceived for more intimate resources and yet perfectly expresses the modernity of the oratorio genre as it appeared in the second half of the 17th century.

If Boccherini was mischievously dubbed “the wife of Haydn”, then Arriaga must have been his second cousin or so. These three quartets are lovely works. Particularly noteworthy is the Quartet in E-flat major (No. 3), with its charming “Pastorale” second movement, but they are all rewarding pieces. The Guarneri Quartet plays them beautifully. Because they are marginal pieces in the quartet repertoire, and because this disc appeared in the mid-1990s when the classical glut was in full “glutitude”, it was easy to overlook these performances. However, if you enjoy Haydn and his school, you won’t find a better release than this one—and it’s extremely well recorded too. It’s good to see it back.

The remarkable career of composer Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, dubbed the "Spanish Mozart" by musicians of the late nineteenth century, was cut tragically short by his death just ten days before his 20th birthday. Today his fame rests as much on brilliant potential as it does on his actual output of music (of which there is, sadly, quite little). Arriaga was born on January 27, 1806 (50 years to the day after Mozart), in the Basque town of Bilbao. An account of his life by musicologist and composer Francois Fétis (with whom Arriaga would later study) indicates that young Juan Crisóstomo received almost no childhood training in music, though it is quite possible that this account (like many later ones, including those that …….

from Allmusic

With this very interesting program the Arriaga-year opened in Bilbao, the birthplace of the composer who died in 1826, not yet twenty years old. His vocal works are performed according to the original manuscripts.

After their highly acclaimed recordings of Arriaga's complete works, Paul Dombrecht and his splendid Il Fondamento ensemble bring his orchestral works to us with the same level of performance. With their unique mixture of lyricism and science, breathtaking from such a young composer, the four works assembled here build a most welcome integral recording on period instruments, performed with the most communicative warmth ……

"Liturgia Haeresis" is the third full length album of Patria, a duo from Brazil which was formed in 2008 and their music is a journey through the old Norwegian sound. In this album there are ten fast tracks baptized in the Norwegian sound of the first half of the ‘90ies with many rhythmic Thrash and some mid tempo Heavier passages.However Patria offer a very good album of raw untouched Norwegian Black Metal which didn’t tire me at all and I really enjoyed it.