Scumann Missa Sacra

Mazarin managed to sign the Treaty of Paris which validates the future Peace of the Pyrenees, and therefore the marriage of Louis XIV with the Infanta of Spain in 1660. In the context of these celebrations, the French ambassador in Venice commissions a mass from Cavalli, the greatest composer of his time. He thus composed this sumptuous Missa, performed in January 1660 in the Basilica of San Giovanni e Paulo and brought together the best voices and most famous musicians around viols, violins, cornets and trumpets in a spatialisation in the Venetian manner. In this recording, Benjamin Chénier takes on this chef d'oeuvre which celebrates France and Louis XIV with brilliant soloists and a strategy of spatialisation in the Royal Chapel which recreates the splendid sound of 1660.

Born in Bohemia in 1656 Fischer’s early musical educative experiences seem to have been lost. He was at the Piarist College in Schlackenwerth and clearly travelled. But our next substantive detail is that by 1690 he was court conductor at Sachsen-Lauenburg. The complexities of the marriages, regencies and instabilities of late seventeenth century nobility are briefly alluded to in the notes but what matters, as far as Fischer is concerned, is that the bulk of his printed compositions date from the years 1690-1715.

The Brabant Ensemble continue their investigation into unknown jewels of the Low Countries Renaissance, researched by their director Stephen Rice and recorded with equal amounts of passion and erudition by the young singers of the group.

Pierre de la Rue - Missa Cum Jocunditate & Visions of Joy - Cappella Pratensis (2016) {Challenge Records Digital Downloads}
FLAC (tracks) - 44kHz/16 bit - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 300 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 154 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Challenge Records | CC 72710
Classical / Early Music / Choral / Renaissance

Music clearly fascinated the great Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516); his sketches and paintings are peppered with closely observed depictions of music-making and musical instruments. Bosch, a native of ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Duchy of Brabant, was a life-long brother of the city’s Brotherhood of Our Illustrious Lady, a large and prestigious organization for which sacred music was an essential and highly-valued part of its devotional life. Every Wednesday Bosch could gather with his Confraternity brothers in their opulent chapel in the church of St. John the Evangelist to celebrate a votive Mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin.

Per celebrare il quinto centenario della morte di Leonardo da Vinci, il genio italiano che nel suo Trattato della pittura scrisse «La musica non è da essere chiamata altro che sorella della pittura», la Elegia Classics è orgogliosa di presentare un disco interamente dedicato a Franchinus Gaffurius, compositore lodigiano oggi quasi dimenticato, ma che ebbe lo straordinario onore di venire ritratto da Leonardo. Il programma è imperniato intorno alla Missa De Carnaval, una delle sue opere più significative, composta per l’ultima domenica prima della quaresima del rito ambrosiano, alla quale fanno corona alcuni mottetti di suggestiva bellezza, che tratteggiano un affascinante spaccato del panorama musicale negli ultimi anni del XV secolo.

Luigi Cherubini - Missa Solemnis in D minor
Patricia Wells, Lou Ann Lee, Maureen Forrester - The Clarion Concerts Orchestra & Chorus / Newell Jenkins
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 379 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Vanguard Classics # 08 5026 71 | Country/Year: US 1996, 1971
Genre: Classical | Style: Vocal, Choral, Sacred, Classicism

Luigi Cherubini (8 or 14 September 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries.

Charles-Marie Widor - Organ Symphony No. 5 in F minor Op. 42, Sinfonia sacra Op. 81
Bamberger Symphoniker / Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie / Stefan Solyom / Christian Schmitt (organ)
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 2,57 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 877 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: CPO # 777 443-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century, Organ

"…CPO's production is exemplary; informative and detailed notes on the organ and music are given in German, English and French, and the cover reproduces an attractive landscape painting. A most enjoyable recording of two excellent but rarely-performed Widor works, which will delight organ and orchestral lovers in equal measure." ~sa-cd.net

Charles-Marie Widor - Organ Symphony No. 5 in F minor Op. 42, Sinfonia sacra Op. 81
Bamberger Symphoniker / Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie / Stefan Solyom / Christian Schmitt (organ)
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 230 MB | Full Artwork: 118 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: CPO # 777 443-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century, Organ

"…CPO's production is exemplary; informative and detailed notes on the organ and music are given in German, English and French, and the cover reproduces an attractive landscape painting. A most enjoyable recording of two excellent but rarely-performed Widor works, which will delight organ and orchestral lovers in equal measure." ~sa-cd.net