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ID: SIGCD036
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: RenaissancePodkolekce: Choir
Signum Records are proud to present the eighth and penultimate volume of Chapelle du Roi’s recording of the Complete Works of Thomas Tallis.
This volume brings together Tallis’s two masterly settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and English adaptations of several of his best-known Latin motets.
Thomas Tallis was one of many continental and English composers who composed settings of texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the opening five verses of which formed part of the office of Matins (or Tenebrae) during Holy Week. Tallis’s two settings could have been performed ritually but in all likelihood they are Elizabethan works intended for use at the private devotions of staunch Catholic sympathisers.
The statutory introduction of the First Book of Common Prayer on Whitsunday, 9th June 1549 precipitated an urgent need for a repertory of service music in the vernacular. One straightforward solution to the predicament was to adapt existing Latin motets to English texts, a genre of composition that has come to be known as a contrafactum. Contrafacta survive of liturgical music by pre-Reformation English composers as well as by several composers whose working life spanned the period of Reformation.
During the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods contrafacta and their models assumed several forms of dual existence, and were performed not only within a liturgical setting but also in a domestic context for recreation or private devotion. Usually there is no textual relationship between the model and the contrafactum. Indeed the finale of this disc, Sing & Glorify heaven’s high majesty, an adaptation of Tallis’s celebrated eight-choir (40-part) motet Spem in alium was adapted to celebrate Prince Henry’s investiture as Prince of Wales in 1610. |
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ID: SIGCD025
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Podkolekce: Choir
Songs and Instrumental Music by Josquin des Pres, his pupils and contemporaries. |
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ID: SIGCD032
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: Chamber MusicRecording Location: St. Andrew's Church, Toddington, Gloucestershire
Louis (c.1626-1661), François le Grand (1668-1733) and Armand-Louis (1727-1789) were the three most celebrated members of the distinguished Couperin family of musicians who flourished from the late 16th century until the middle of the 19th, holding a position of esteem parallel to that of the Bachs in Germany.
The Sultan and the Phoenix presents both masterpieces and rare gems from the Couperins and their contemporaries, all delivered with a rare insight by the ensemble charivari agréable. The programme presents an overview of the ensemble use of the viol in its various manifestations and stages of evolution in France. The Couperin dynasty offers a convenient chronological framework within which the viol could be heard in various guises: from a consort setting to a ‘pičces de clavecin en concerts’ configuration; from a six-string bass viol to a five-string hybrid ‘quinton’. Underpinning this programme is the historical practice of adaptation, transcription and arrangement with which French baroque music is replete.
Historical tradition is followed by the arrangement of some pieces by the players. Some involved direct transcription, such as the L. Couperin Pavan for a viol consort or the F. Couperin harpsichord piece for theorbo (in the style of de Visée, see above). Other pieces are left untouched, such as L. Couperin’s Fantaisies and Corrette’s Phénix, as well as the large-scale chamber works of Dornel and Couperin.
Charivari Agréable’s reputation as one of the most original ensembles in the period-instrument scene was recently articulated by the BBC Music Magazine, which noted that the ensemble “has carved something of a niche for itself in imaginative and well thought-out programming”, reasoning that its work is the fruit of both scholarly research and charismatic musicianship, a combination which puts it at the forefront of period-instrument ensembles.
This recording is refreshing and rewarding. Charivari Agréable is a rare combination with a distinct sound and sonority, displaying sincere empathy and love for the repertory they choose to record. |
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ID: SIGCD029
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: RenaissancePodkolekce: Choir
Signum Records are delighted to release the seventh volume of their celebrated nine-disc series, presenting the Complete Works of Thomas Tallis (1505 - 1585).
Queen Elizabeth’s reign (1558-1603) was a golden age for the arts. England enjoyed a growing cultural exchange with continental Europe. England’s rich, but essentially conservative pre-Reformation heritage was infused with increasing continental influence and innovations.
Elizabeth I was the fourth monarch to sit on the throne in Thomas Tallis’s lifetime. From the outset of her reign Elizabeth allowed considerable freedom of practice and belief. She was firmly in favour of a vernacular liturgy for the general population, although in her own chapels she preferred a more lavish ceremony to music.
Tallis had witnessed the wholesale destruction of much of England’s church music tradition, however the ever adaptable composer met the challenges of a new liturgy, its new styles and genres, with the imaginative force of a man half his age.
The years of Reformation, and Elizabeth’s protestant settlement, freed the Latin-texted tradition of liturgical propriety, allowing composers to reinvigorate the language and harness it to new, expressive and personal ends. This recording presents Tallis’s Elizabethan Latin motets (which number fifteen). The mighty occasional piece, the forty-voice motet Spem in alium, concludes the disc. |
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ID: SIGCD019
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: Choral CollectionPodkolekce: Choir
Signum Records is delighted to present Chapelle du Roi’s eleventh release with the label. This recording offers a selection of music spanning the life and reign of Charles V, undoubtedly the most powerful man in 16th-century Europe, from his early teenage years to his death in 1558.
Charles was a devout Catholic, and maintained a chapel employing some of the most notable composers of the period, including Nicolas Gombert and Thomas Crecquillon, who Charles referred to as ‘the truest Opheus of the age’. Closely identified with the Order of the Golden Fleece, which gave rise to the L’homme armé tradition, Charles V was said to have a musical ear. A great deal of music survives that is associated directly with him and his patronage - a selection of which is presented on this recording.
The music composed for rulers frequently mixed the heavenly with the secular, and a great many pieces were written to celebrate political conquests and occasions within the court. For example, Cristóbal Morales possibly wrote his Missa L'homme armé as an offering for Charles’s wedding to Isabella of Portugal.
Near the end of Charles’s reign, the young composer Orlandus Lassus was just starting his career, and seeking preferment. He offered his secular motet, Heroum Soboles to Charles in the hope that he would join the prestigious Capilla Flamenca. He was unsuccessful, however Charles’s minister, Bishop Granvelle of Arras helped Lassus to secure his position at the court of Duke Albrecht of Bavaria - a musical establishment that was no less magnificent.
The last years of Charles life were troubled by his failure to convert the Protestants back into the Roman Catholic Church, and to lead a universal Catholic empire. His death resounded throughout the Empire, and Don Fernando de las Infantas marked his passing with a setting of Parce Mihi Domine, the best-known of the texts from Matins pro defunctis. |
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ID: ACDHN034w-2
Disk: 1
Type: SACD
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Kolekce: Choral CollectionPodkolekce: Choir
3 - Soloist: Rudmer de Vries, tenor
6, 7 - Noriko Yabe, piano
14 - Soloists: Rudmer de Vries, tenor / Bauke Hoekstra, bass
Cantatrix is an ensemble aiming for the highest level of choral singing. In their first cd the singers present their group in a programme of mainly contemporary music. The principal characteristic of the repertoire in this recording is a high degree of variety, resulting in - you guessed - contrasts.
Frits Ham.
Elgar, Mäntyjärvy, Biebl, Whitacre, Vermeeren, Lauridsenen, Gorecki. |
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ID: SIGCD094
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: BaroquePodkolekce: Choir
With a stunning selection of choral music that is truly fit for a King, Andrew Gant leads the Choir of the Chapel Royal & The Musicians Extra-Ordinary to re-create the music that accompanied the coronation of James II and Queen Mary in 1685.
Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensembles: St. James's Palace Chapel Royal Choir, St. James's Palace Chapel Royal Musicians. Conductor: Andrew Gant. |
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ID: SIGCD104
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: Choral CollectionPodkolekce: Choir
With a stunning selection of brand new arrangements, the Swingles’ return to disc promises some of their best and most memorable performances to date on this studio album.
The warm, beautiful tone and precision of the groups voices are combined with a modern edge; with vocal percussion and beatboxing featuring guest performances from Shlomo, the world renowned beatboxer, and the Vocal Orchestra. |
| 15.00 eur Temporarily out of stock |
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ID: SIGCD507
Disk: 1
Type: CD
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Kolekce: Choral CollectionPodkolekce: Choir
The Elysian Singers perform choral works by composer, James MacMillan.
MacMillan characteristically draws inspiration for his vocal works from recurring themes such as the Catholic Church and Scottish traditional culture.
The most substantial work on this recording is Cantos Sagrados ("Sacred Songs"). MacMillan takes the poems of Latin American poets Ariel Dorfman and Ana Maria Mendosa, and combines their settings of political repression with traditional religious texts to create a powerful combination of liberation theology. The result is at times delicate, and then terrifying. The composer’s intentions were to create a work both sacred and secular, being timeless yet contemporary.
Of the other works on this disc, the majority are settings of Latin or English religious texts often written for particular occasions or places. A Child’s Prayer, for instance, was dedicated to the victims of the Dunblane tragedy of 1996, where one teacher and sixteen of her pupils were shot dead whilst in class. One of the two secular works on this recording, The Gallant Weaver is a setting of that most Scottish of poets, Robert Burns, to a nostalgic evocation of Celtic folk-music.
The Elysian Singers were founded in 1986. Since 1999 they have been directed by Sam Laughton and have established a national reputation as a young and lively chamber choir, winning awards for commissioning new music. |
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ID: ACDHD026-2
Disk: 1
Type: SACD
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Kolekce: Choral CollectionThe ensemble Fortuna gives in a very special way a rebirthto the music from the 14th Century, and with that the way of thinking in that period, Absolutely a mustahave recording for those who loves the music of this period!
Adieu vous di - Ars Nova of the Low Countries
The 14th Century is a time of stark contrasts: waves of plague epidemics surge through Europe, France and England are fighting the Hundred Years War, and the Schism in the Catholic Church causes a crisis throughout all of Western Europe. Nonetheless, this is also a time of enormous cultural growth and development: the English philosopher Ockham lays the groundwork of nominalism, the Dutch Van Limburg brothers are painting their stunning miniatures for Les Tres Riches Heures, and the Italian writer Boccaccio is giving lectures in Florence about Dante’s Divina Commedia. |
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