Vox+dei

Jordi Savall - Maestros del Siglo de Oro - Morales, Guerrero, de Victoria (2009) {3CD Alia Vox AVSA9867 rec 1991-1992}
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© 1991-92, 2009 Alia Vox | AVSA 9836 A/C
Classical / Renaissance / Sacred Music

The liturgy of the Dead – including the Requiem Mass, the Burial Service and the Office of the dead, properly speaking – was granted considerable importance by the Spanish ecclesiastical authorities and by the local church composers from very early times. Throughout the Middle Ages, according to the extant documentary descriptions, the death of a great Lord, such as the Count of Barcelona or the sovereign of any of the Spanish kingdoms of León, Castile, Aragon or Navarre, was usually mourned with impressive ceremonies in which the solemnity of the liturgy was often enhanced by the addition of the planctus, a kind of lengthy optional lament that was sung monophonically and of which several examples have survived.

Jordi Savall - 25 Years La Capella Reial De Catalunya (2013) {4CD Set Alia Vox AVSA9897}
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© 2013 Alia Vox | AVSA 9897
Classical / Renaissance / Vocal Music / Orchestral / Chamber Music

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Capella Reial de Catalunya, the choir he founded in 1988, Jordo Savall has gathered four examples of their work, rich in Catalan heritage, luxuriously presented in a box and all published originally on the Astree label. In 1987, after 13 years of intense research, concerts and recordings with the ensemble Hespèrion XX, the decision to send our children to school in Catalonia led to us spending more time there and gave us the opportunity to contact and select various Romance language-speaking singers from Catalonia, Spain and other countries. Convinced of the defining influence that a country’s cultural roots and traditions inevitably have on the expression of its musical language, Montserrat Figueras and I founded La Capella Reial with the aim of creating one of the first vocal ensembles devoted exclusively to the performance of Golden Age music according to historical principles and consisting exclusively of Hispanic and Latin voices.

Vox Iberica – Sequentia’s long-term project to record music from three of Spain’s most important musical sources – begins with music from the so-called Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century manuscript containing liturgical chant and polyphony in honour of Saint James the Apostle, otherwise known as Santiago, whose relics have been venerated by pilgrims since the Middle Ages in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. For this recording, the eight men’s voices of Sequentia join to record the complete polyphony found in this magnificent collection of sacred music, including some of the earliest polyphony to be clearly notated in a European source.

Vox is an Ann Arbor, MI-based early music ensemble that is performing a cappella Renaissance choral works in a part of the world where just recently they were hard to hear in person. Josquin and the Lost Generation is their debut recording. The disc contains an attractive and interesting program that does a fine job introducing audiences to the live stylistic issues of the early sixteenth century.

The winner of numerous prestigious prizes, including several Gramophone Awards, the vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, founded by Lionel Meunier in 2004, is now regarded as a benchmark in the interpretation of the great works of German Baroque music. Its unfailingly faithful and lively approach to such masters as Bach, Buxtehude and Scheidt has made the group’s reputation, but this new recording features a major work by Heinrich Biber, a composer hitherto absent from its discography: his Requiem in F minor for 14 voices, composed around 1692. The programme is completed by two sacred works by Christoph Bernhard (Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener in Friede fahren and Tribularer si nescirem misericordias tuas), two pieces by Johann Joseph Fux, and the Sonata a 6 in A minor of Johann Michael Nicolai.

Jordi Savall - Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber - Baroque Splendor (2015) {Alia Vox AVSA9912}
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© 2015 Alia Vox | AVSA9912
Classical / Baroque / Choral

Like a great, mysterious nebula, the dazzling Missa Salisburgensis arches over the world of polychoral music by virtue of the exceptional complexity and richness of its means, which are deployed to create a unique expression in sound and space, symbolising with extraordinary exuberance and efficiency all the strength and grandeur of divine power, political and religious power. Shrouded in mystery and regarded by specialists as the Everest of polychoral compositions, this work was discovered by a Salzburg grocer in 1870. At first it was mistakenly attributed to the composer Orazio Benevoli, but now, as Professor Ernst Hintermaier explains (see his accompanying commentary), it is unanimously considered to be among the masterpieces of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, one of the greatest and most talented Austrian composers of the Baroque period.

Jordi Savall - Harmonie Universelle II (2004) {Alia Vox ‎AV9839}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 379 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 188 Mb
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© 2004 Alia Vox | AVSA 9839
Classical / Medieval / Renaissance / Baroque

Harmonie Universelle II illustrates the great historical diversity and range of repertory (from the 15th century to the beginning of the 21st century, in both thematic albums and recordings of works from the great repertory) as well as the wide range of musical formations (solo viol, small instrumental ensemble, solo vocalist, solo orchestra, orchestra and choir, opera) to be found on Alia Vox, an artists’ label created in 1998 by the two great early music exponents: Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras. Also featured in this new portrait is an extract from an opera by Vicente Martín y Soler on a libretto by Da Ponte, Il Burbero di buon cuore, recorded in Montpellier in 1995 – a rare opportunity to hear a performance not available on disc.