The Five Countertenors

Decca’s new release brings together five of the world’s most renowned countertenors, who bring the rich world of baroque opera to life. Once rarely heard, countertenors are now firmly established on the operatic stage and concert platform and their popularity has reached an all-time high. This album features virtuosic highlights from baroque opera and showcases the extraordinary abilities of five astonishing artists: Max Emanuel Cencic, Yuriy Mynenko, Valer Sabadus, Xavier Sabata and Vince Yi.

Johannes Ockeghem (c1410 - 1497) was a composer who had one of the most far reaching impacts on the history of music. He was also the father of the musical form of the canon. So whether it is a canon by a modern composer, by Bach or by Pachabel - all these are but ripples of the impact that this man had on the destiny of Western music. However of all of the surviving works - there is a sadly lost 36 part mass cycle - the Missa Prolationum is the one that shows the grandiosity of his musical vision, his audacity and the genius of his mind perhaps far greater than any other.

Carl Heinrich Graun (1703/4–59) was one of the two most famous composers of Italian opera in 18th-century Germany, his only serious rival being Johann Adolf Hasse at the court in Dresden. He was the court composer of Prussian King Frederick the Great. He wrote at least 26 highly acclaimed operas for the Berlin Unter den Linden opera house that Frederick built for that purpose, in addition to the six he had written for an earlier patron.

This album of Baroque cantatas and chamber duets grew out of a 2007 performance of Stefano Landi's 1631 opera Il Sant'Alessio starring Philippe Jaroussky and Max Emanuel Cencic (among the eight countertenors in the cast) with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissants. Christie was so impressed with the blend of Jaroussky and Cencic's voices that he brought them together to explore the vast and rarely performed repertoire of late 17th and early 18th century Italian duets for equal voices.

Alfred Deller - The Complete Vanguard Recordings, Vol.5 - English, French and Italian Madrigals (2009) {6CD Set}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.94 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 0.99 Gb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 17 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Vanguard Classics / Musical Concepts | MC 196
Classical / Choral / Vocal Music / Madrigals

I grew up listening these recordings in LP. I always loved these charming performances of selected English, French, and Italian madrigals. At last we have these musical treasures in six Vanguard boxes. The dean of the countertenors, Alfred Deller, didn`t have a beautiful voice, but, as Callas among the sopranos, was instead, a very great singer and performer. Everything he and the ensemble sing is witty or moving. Not all the voices singing in the Deller Ensemble were really fine, but there is an outstanding unity in every piece and in the whole thing.

Gerard Lesne has led a unique career: largely self-taught, he began as a jazz and rock singer who not only converted to more serious music, but became identified as one of the leading countertenors in the early music genre. He has sung with several early music ensembles, including the Clemencic Consort and with the group he founded, Il Seminario Musicale. The sound quality of Lesne's voice has been described as the male counterpart to the female contralto.

Luigi Rossi (1598-1653), along with Monteverdi and Frescobaldi, were significant composers of the first half of the seventeenth century. His appreciation for the emotions of texts led him to devise a new means of expression in vocal music, which was the major part of his output. He was one of the first composers whose primary field was secular vocal music.

This eight-disc set includes odes and theater pieces; and Gardiner's performances are more than excellent. He synthesizes the spare delicacy and ceremonial grandeur of Purcell's music in performances that are very satisfying.