H.W. Henze - Guitar Music 2 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In his music, Heitor Villa-Lobos wanted to combine the culture of the street with high culture, to fuse indigenous elements with the polyphonic structures of European classical music. The German-Brazilian guitarist Gunter Herbig, who lives in New Zealand, expands this spirit by transferring the guitar music of the Brazilian grand master to the electric guitar, giving it a meditative expanse and cosmopolitan openness that transcends the classical field of sensibility. After his groundbreaking Gurdjieff album for BIS Records, this is already the second unorthodox album on which Herbig uses the fine-nerved possibilities of his Gretsch White Falcon electric guitar to breathe into the music a dreamy spirit that flies over and unites worlds, transporting us to unknown dimensions. And finally, in the famous Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, he unites with the samba singer Alda Rezende, who here too - an octave lower than usual - makes the music shine in a completely different new light. An album for dreamers between worlds and those who want to become one.

One of Europe's foremost living composers, Hans Werner Henze has written an extraordinarily prolific quantity of music in every genre. This disc of his guitar music spans almost thirty years of his career and ranges from Royal Winter Music, a virtuosic sonata which extends the boundaries of guitar technique, to the folk music-like Neu Volkslieder und Hirtengesange, inspired by Austrian peasant songs.

La Blancheur des Cygnes is a poetic and reflective musical project that celebrates feminine energy, beauty, and strength through the timeless art of the French chanson. Historian Els Kloek's liner notes frame the album as a continuation of the conversation started by Simone de Beauvoir - exploring how women have evolved from Inchthe otherInch to agents of their own expression. Through Haesen's evocative voice and the refined strings of the Café des Chansons quartet, the album traverses nearly a century of song - from Charles Trenet's joyful optimism to modern interpretations by artists like Zaho de Sagazan and Solann - weaving themes of love, self-acceptance, vulnerability, and empowerment.At the heart of this collection lies a reclamation of beauty as a feminine right no longer dictated by the male gaze but redefined as a source of power and authenticity. The title, La Blancheur des Cygnes (InchThe Whiteness of SwansInch), alludes both to Baudelaire's poem La Beauté and to Andersen's tale of The Ugly Duckling, reflecting transformation, grace, and the freedom to be seen. Through these fourteen chansons, Charlotte Haesen and the ensemble offer a moving counterpoint to the enduring dominance of masculine energy - proposing empathy, love, and artistic sensitivity as the true instruments of balance in our modern world.