Huelgas Ensemble - Magnificat / Mass Parts / Motets - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Under it's founder-director Krijn Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche has won international acclaim for it's complete recording of Monteverdi's madrigals, a project over a decade in the making and which has recently been released complete for the first time by Brilliant Classics. Now the ensemble turns it's attention to a modern master of concerted vocal writing, Arvo Pärt. The idioms of the two composers could hardly be more different Monteverdi's madrigals so rich and elaborate, speaking of earthly love and pain, while Pärt evokes a world of stillness and calm. As Koetsveld remarks in his booklet introduction, his music seems so simple. Only a few notes, repeated harmonies, often extremely quiet tempo, declamation on a note or chord. No complex patterns, with many surprisingly dissonant harmonies or highly complex vocalizations. Where does that intriguing, intoxicating atmosphere come from which many cherish and enrapture? In the Magnificat of 1989 Pärt draped the text in a free declamatory style, on a note, or a dissonance or a simple harmonic world He expresses the Marian hymn softly, almost timidly, as if the defining vision of the text is of Mary, quietly rejoicing at the news that she carries within her the son of God. The Nunc dimittis was composed separately, 12 years later, but it's unhurried unfolding of the Song of Simeon complements the Magnificat perfectly. The Seven Magnificat Antiphons (1988, 1991) and the Stabat mater (1985) both employ fewer notes in the service of a more austere soundworld, one which may cast the listener back to the vast spaces of a medieval cathedral and the daily offices held therein. For 25 minutes the Stabat mater dwells hauntingly within the Aeolian mode as if in musical imitation of Mary, quietly lamenting her son at the foot of the Cross. Both of them exercise an immense power upon any receptive listener, and this new recording is

With radiant accounts from The Brabant Ensemble of the Mass, a Magnificat and a selection of motets, this album of first recordings is a major addition to Guerrero's still select discography.

In Rysum in East Frisia a particularly valuable historical organ has been preserved This unique instrument from the years 1442 and 1513 still has most of it's original pipes. The organist Lorenzo Ghielmi and the Ensemble Biscantores present here a kind of organ mass in which organ pieces and liturgical chant alternate according to the practice of the time. The Italian organist and harpsichordist, Lorenzo Ghielmi, is organist on the Ahrend organ (1991) at the Basilica di San Simpliciano in Milan, where he performed from 1992 to 1994 the complete organ works of J.S. Bach. He gives concerts throughout Europe, Japan and the USA as an organist and harpsichordist. He has made many radio and studio recordings. He plays with his instrumental ensemble La Divina Armonia and in duet with his younger brother Vittorio Ghielmi (viola da gamba and harpsichord). In France, he received the Diapason d'Or for his recordings of Bruhns and Bach. He also played organ & harpsichord in the first recordings of Il Giardino Armonico. Lorenzo Ghielmi, teaches organ, harpsichord and early music at the Milan Accademia Internazionale della Musica.