Rich Paul

This recording is dedicated to German Renaissance composer Ludwig Daser. Paul Van Nevel and the Huelgas Ensemble have recorded two polyphonic masses by the Munich-born composer, who was a contemporary of famous composers such as Orlando di Lasso and Cipriano di Rore. Ludwig Daser came from a wealthy Munich family. His composition teacher was to be the then famous Ludwig Senfl.

A CD of world premiere recordings of music not heard since Vivaldi’s day. Volume 28 of the Foà Collection is Vivaldi’s personal collection of opera arias, and includes variants on the arias performed in the operas. The performances under the stylish direction of Federico Maria Sardelli, who also contributes a dazzling recording obbligato in the concluding aria, are splendid.

On Sacred Ordinary Paul's artistry of creating a palette of rich emotional sounds sets a foundation from which he weaves a series of electronic web like pieces with a keen sense of melodic invention and dimensional symmetry. There is an hint of nostalgia in these tracks as well if one has been privy to the classic melodic sequencer style electronic music periods over the past few decades. This brings another kind of depth to the experience while at the same time this music is really about the here and now as it unfolds with a kind a graceful patience and awareness to detail that keeps pulling you in deeper with each play.

Paul Goodwin’s A Christmas Collection (his debut disc with the Academy of Ancient Music) offers an anthology of Schütz’s shorter dialogues and motets by way of an alternative to the composer’s own Christmas Oratorio. Anyone who has ever endured that drily austere work will be pleasantly surprised by the rich textures and vocal expressivity of much of the music here, and by the dramatic wit, say, of the little Annunciation scene, ‘Sei gegrüsset Maria’, for male alto Angel and soprano Mary, in which the mother-to-be can’t help interrupting her heavenly visitor, first in sheer amazement, then in her eagerness to confirm her unblemished virgin state.

The polychoral and antiphonal works of Giovanni Gabrieli sound best performed in the acoustics for which they were conceived, such as the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, where this splendid collection was recorded. Whether in extroverted pieces like the Sonatas 18 and 20, or the introspective and harmonically rich Domine, Deus meus, the sounds that resonate between the notes are crucial to this composer's expression. Time and again one's ears perk up at Gabrieli's genius for blending the most unlikely sonorities imaginable, such as six low voices and six sackbuts (early relatives of the trombone) in the extraordinary Suscipe clementissime.

On ars moriendi Paul Giger looks at life’s flowing patterns, at death and renewal, as he brings together compositions by Bach and new music drawing inspiration from the work of painter Giovanni Segantini and Swiss folk traditions. The album was recorded in Maloja, where Segantini spent the last years of his life.

The setting by Alphonse D’Eve (1666-1727)‚ born in Brussels and Kapellmeister at the church of Our Lady in Antwerp‚ of the motet for the dead‚ O acerbi‚ is not without its moments. The plangent opening is striking‚ as is the use of high voices at the beginning of the final chorus‚ presumably to represent the heavenly hosts referred to in the text. If the music‚ thoroughly Italianate in style and often reminiscent of Vivaldi‚ is somewhat predictable – the cadences are rather formulaic and the sequential patterns overused – it is certainly worth dusting down: it represents the kind of work that must have been heard in so many of the larger musical institutions all over Europe in the early part of the 18th century.

Thomas Arne, (who wrote “Rule Britannia”) is underplayed. Practically everything I’ve heard by him is of interest on multiple levels, either as an original voice utilizing the harmonic and melodic materials of the English baroque style, or as an innovator, at least to my ears, conjuring novel expressions within those materials, or simply as a good tunesmith.

German composer Michael Praetorius, whose life bridged the 16th and 17th centuries, was one of his era's most prolific writers, both of musical works and of works about music. His "Syntagma Musicum" remains one of the most important treatises on instruments and performance practice; he composed many volumes of Protestant hymn-based works, motets, psalms, works for multiple choir, and Latin music for the Lutheran service. The "Magnificat" performed on this program is one of 14 that Praetorius included in his Megalynodia Sionia, published in 1611. Its polyphonic style and rich instrumental writing–particularly for brass–is occasionally reminiscent of Gabrieli, whose works Praetorius studied; or Schutz, with whom he traveled throughout Germany.