Athena Ensemble - Petite Symphony - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

With Lagrime d'amante, La Compagnia del Madrigale, so accomplished with 16th- and 17thcentury Italian music and words, turns it's attention afresh to the music of Claudio Monteverdi. This new Glossa faithfully conveys the beauty of the ensemble's vocal blend in a selection of five-part compositions drawn from the Monteverdi of Cremona, Mantua and Venice, but centring on that cornerstone of his art, the Sixth Book. The act of singing whilst weeping - as Marco Bizzarini points out in his booklet essay - is somewhat unfeasible, but time after time Monteverdi strove to overcome that improbability by his music, often calling upon the best Italian poetry of the time here, the fabulously vivid imagery of Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini and Petrarch are well served by Monteverdi's musical response. The programme takes us through various troubled emotional states involving love a lover dying of love, the partenza amorosa (or lovers' separation), even a shepherd accidentally wounding his loved one, but also the outpouring of grief in the Lagrime d'amante al sepolcro dell'amata, a commissioned madrigal cycle to newly written words lamenting the death in 1608 of the promising singer Caterina Martinelli, a pupil of the composer, but also that of Monteverdi's wife. This work and others on this recording involved the lamented bass Daniele Carnovich to whom the group pay tribute; the sessions were completed by Matteo Bellotto. Her latest project, with sonatas by Josef Antonin Stepan, reflects her patient, respectful and profoundly musical approach to her own new discoveries. These newly found sonatas, which she defines as Incha sort of missing link in the transition from harpsichord to fortepianoInch and being Inchat he forefront of the development to a new era of compositionInch with Inchflavours of Mozart, Haydn, and early BeethovenInch, were recorded in Berlin and set yet ano

Athena Ensemble - Don Giovanni [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/29/2008

A cursory listen to Brooklyn indie act Habibi's self-titled debut album would initially seem to suggest a straightforward punk approach to the classic girl group template. Front-loaded with sweetly catchy upbeat pop tracks like InchI Got the MovesInch and InchDetroit Baby,Inch Habibi's indie shimmy rhythms and reverb-heavy harmonies find the middle ground between the Shangri-Las and the Undertones in the same way the Vivian Girls did on their earliest work. The guitar lines are direct and no-frills, drummer Karen Isabel manages to play in a way that is equally powerful and understated, and the vocals are distant and eerie, whether delivered in a frantic rush solely by lead singer Rahill Jamalifard, as on spiky garage tracks like InchPersepolis,Inch or in a dreamy cloud of harmony by multiple bandmembers. Getting past the first few easily digestible girl group pop hits, it becomes clear that the true strength of Habibi lies in just how strange and haunted the songs can get. There's a spooky desperation in the slinky after-hours club narrative of InchLet Me InInch and a simmering anxiety lurking beneath what first appears to be a carefree tale of summer seduction on InchSiin.Inch Habibi tap into the very specific energy of a young band putting together it's earliest songs, free from the self-consciousness and rules that can creep in and dull groups down once they become more established. Instead, the 11 songs that make up this perfectly brief album feel fresh and spirited even in their moments of occasional awkwardness or disjointedness. Far from naive but also completely lacking any of the jaded calculation of many of their peers, Habibi's debut offers up a set of songs that swim in strangeness, beauty, and discovery and are every bit as infectious as they are refreshing.Far From RightI Got The MovesDetroit BabySunsetsSweetest TalkShe Comes AlongPersepolis Let Me InSii