Cardew / Tilbury / Krauze / Zemier - Grand Tour - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The harpsichord maker of the greatest eminence... was Joannes Daniel Dulcken. With this quote from Charles Burney, Dulcken stands as one of the most important Flemish harpsichord makers of the 18th century in the tradition of the Ruckers-Couchet dynasty of the previous century. This recording explores the sound the magnificent single-manual Dulcken harpsichord from 1747, now in the collection of the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp on permanent loan at the Museum Vleeshuis. Korneel Bernolet proposes an imaginary Grand Tour of the year 1747, with music written in or around the year the instrument was built; as if a Flemish harpsichordist of the time put some first publications of foreign works on the music stand of the Antwerp harpsichord and started to play.

Listening to music is always a journey for the listener - but with the Ensemble Cicerone's new GENUIN album, the composers were already adventurers - people who, in the Baroque era, took to the dangerous roads on land and water all over Europe and ensured that musical styles met and mixed. The musicians of the ensemble, which bears in it's name the great travel guidebooks, teach at the Mozarteum and at the Cologne University of Music they let the intricate paths of emotions arise before our inner ears in the wonderful music of Handel, Muffat, Telemann, and others and thus cast a spell on us. Better than Baedeker! For the Cicerone Ensemble, just playing music is not enough. Listening to historical music is only part of the experience the three young musicians set out to provide. Their goal is to showcase music and bring it to life like a tourist guide would an old painting or an ancient building, hence the name InchCiceroneInch (in Italian- InchGuideInch).

The Accademia Strumentale Italiana was founded in Verona in 1981 with the specific purpose of recreating the atmospheres of those ancient and illustrious academies, where the pleasure of meeting one another gave a special flavour to making music together. It's repertoire encompasses instrumental and vocal music ranging from the Renaissance to the early Baroque, performed according to strict philological canons, but without compromising it's ability to comunicate with the present. The Accademia has performed extensively in Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and Germany and has been invited to several international festivals where it has always met with widespread critical acclaim. The pieces on this new are centered around a single idea comedy. Each piece has an element of humor and would have been used to lighten the mood on stage.