Barce / Eulalia Sole - Spanish Composers of Today - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Eva Knardahl - Slatter Op72 [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/22/1994

Francesco Balilla Pratella, one of the most important and eclectic figures of the early-twentieth- century cultural scene in Italy, molded his life to the constant pursuit of spiritual ascension and the quest for the essence of man. For him, these conditions were indispensable for achieving the Inchhumanized re-creation of the worldInch, the primary, essential goal of an artist-creator InchCreation, in an absolute sense, is not a human faculty; we cannot add or remove anything in the universe. But we can humanly re-create the universe, that is, translate it and re-express it with images and values that are essentially human. This is what art is, and this is what life is a human re-creation of the world in it's terms and values, and only for man a humanization of the world.Inch So he re-created the world, his world, untiringly dividing himself between musical composition, teaching, the passionate study of folk traditions, and the writing of hundreds and hundreds of theoretic, critical, musical-aesthetic and philosophic texts. The Pratella Ensemble is the interpreter of this production that collects a varied anthology of the composer's chamber production lieder, instrumental and choral pages that reflect the work and life of a highly original author, protagonist of a historical and cultural moment - that of the futurism - of great experimentation and artistic travail.

Antonio Soler is the 17th century's Spanish composer with the greatest international projection. His fame is due to the celebrated sonatas for harpsichord and his chamber music. However, Soler also produced an extensive oeuvre of vocal music thanks to the more than thirty years he spent at the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, where he was organist and maestro de capilla. This album gathers a carefully selected group of compositions in Latin written for two choruses and instrumental ensemble, some of which have never been recorded. Based on the technical procedures involved in polychoral writing, these works are made up of imposing choral sections- of both homophonic and contrapuntal textures- and sections for soloists with either a cantabile or virtuoso character closer to a theatrical style, all of which shows his mastery throughout an admirable stylistic spectrum. This pioneering initiative reveals the abundant imagination, the vocal writing skill and the ample scope of expressive resources employed by the great Catalan musician.