Blazikova / Kydlicek / Reslerova / Eben - Carolus Iv. Rex Et Imperator - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Traditional Czech and Moravian carols, Christmas canticles from Czech Baroque hymnbooks, old European Advent and Christmas songs, and Jaroslav Krcek's original songs. The highly acclaimed Christmas album Nativitas is now joined by a new festive album, bearing the title Exaltatio. While in Colloquial Latin the word means InchexaltationInch and InchelationInch, in Christian theology it has a more profound connotation InchelevationInch. The mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková has recorded yet another Christmas-themed album, featuring Czech and other European carols and folk songs hailing the Nativity. At Christmas, people feel much closer to one another than at any other time of the year, and it has been so for centuries. The special seasonal atmosphere is what French, German, English and Polish songs have in common. Pecková has again reached for Baroque hymnbooks, in which piety combines with a majestic sublime mood. The album also encompasses much more high-spirited and poetic folk carols. Jaroslav Krcek has made stylistic arrangements, whose singular signature relates to Musica Bohemica. The features several Baroque-inspired pieces he himself has composed. The magic of Christmas evidently continues to be celebrated by contemporary creators. Dagmar Pecková's new Christmas album 30 carols and songs from Bohemia, Moravia and other European regions

This Dux double CD brings to the fore the somewhat forgotten composer Alexander Kulikowski (1915-93). Hailing from Vilnius he settled in Warsaw after the end of WWII, where he took up teaching and composing. Disc One of this set comprises duo chamber works, including a suite for cello and piano, and the Mountain Triptych for small chamber ensemble. Disc two contains songs, some with texts written by Kulikowski himself, sung by soprano Anna Mikolajczyk accompanied by pianist Edward Wolanin.

Two centuries after the prosperous era of Charles IV, Prague enjoyed it's second Golden Age, under the reign of the art-loving Emperor and King Rudolf II, as it became a busy cultural centre, attracting artists from all over Europe. Like in a melting pot, a variety of musical styles mingled together in the city the Franco-Flemish polyphony, represented by the world's most accomplished composer at the time, as well as the vigorous tradition of literary brotherhoods with the archaic polyphonic repertoire of the previous generations. The focal point of the album is the recently rediscovered Prague manuscript of polyphonic masses, with the fabulously survived Missa Presulem ephebeatum by Heinrich Isaac, one of the most significant masters of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style. Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz's Presulem ephebeatum, whose thematic material inspired Isaac, attests to his mass being connected with Bohemia and Prague. The album contains a number of other extraordinary pieces, including Josquin Des Prez's celebrated Stabat Mater, with the added sixth voice, which has been uniquely preserved in this form in Bohemia. Cappella Mariana, made up of stellar early music singers (Hana Blažíková, Barbora Kabátková, etc.), have performed Renaissance polyphony to great acclaim at Europe's most prestigious concert venues and festivals. Vocal polyphony of Renaissance Prague in the perfect harmony of the Cappella Mariana voices