Ensemble Vocal Sequence - Sonatine Our 8 Voix / Our Le Mystere Precipte - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Telemann / Oggier / Ensemble Fratres - Georg Philipp Telemann Music for Flute [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/27/2017

The voice has a central place in Michael Finnissy's output. His is an art of line, of connective lyric movement spun out over a breath; it is also a deeply humanist art, an art in ardent search of human connection, of which the voice, reaching out from the depths of the body into the world around us, is the primal vehicle. Finnissy's work manifests across the decades an abiding concern with the complex nature of this most bodily, most physical, most personal of instruments- what it is to give voice, to vocalize, to speak or sing in different contexts and different ways, private or public, as an individual or as part of a collective. The four works on this recording, spanning forty years, show Finnissian vocality at it's most blazingly intense displays of virtuosity that push mind and body to the limits of their flexibility, reach, stamina and control.

Carlo Donato Cossoni (1623-1700) was born into a family of musicians in the small town of Gravedona by Lake Como on November 10, 1623. By 1650 he was organist at San Fedele in Como, where he had previously been ordained priest. He published his op. 1 of two-part and three-part motets in Venice in 1665, and 13 further works followed up to 1679, all of sacred music. He bequeathed 54 sacred works to the Benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln (Appellato della Madonna de Valdo, InchOur Lady of the HermitsInch), and after his death in Gravedona they were added to the abbey library. Other Cossoni manuscripts have been preserved in Milan, Como and Bologna. The NOVANTIQUA Bern vocal ensemble was founded in 1987 by Bernhard Pfammatter to prepare sophisticated choral literature for concert performance by a small ensemble. The name NOVANTIQUA expresses the ensemble's commitment to the interpretation of early works alongside the performance of music from the 20th and 21st centuries. The Kesselberg Ensemble was founded in 2004 by Latvian musicians, all graduates of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The ensemble chose the name InchKesselbergInch, Latvian Katlakalns, to celebrate the district of Riga where Johann Gottfried Müthel (born 1728 in Mölln, died 1788 in Riga) spent his later years. J.S. Bach's last pupil, Müthel was Latvia's greatest composer of the 18th century.