Leigh / Taylor / Ambrosian Singers / Lawrence - Jolly Roger - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Oratorio Stella Maris is homage to the cathedral of Chartres, and it is an attempt to respond to this overall work of art with current and modern means of art. The composer of this creation is Helge Burggrabe, who as a young musician, first came to Chartres in 1996. Since then he visits there several times a year to stay and work. On the occasion of the 1000 years anniversary celebrations in Chartres, Burggrabe was commissioned to compose a work for the cathedral. The music, as the act, lives off the polarity between old and new by combining Gregorian elements with a more modern musical language. The words sung by soloists and choir are carried on by instruments the solo melody lines of the cello on one side and the sonority of the organ on the other side.

Among the Spanish sources from the first third of the seventeenth century, the Cancionero de la Sablonara holds a very special place. It was prepared between 1625 and 1626 for a German noble, Wolfang Wilhelm, who held, among other titles of nobility, those of count palatine and duke of Neoburg and who had visited the court in Madrid between October 1624 and May 1625. This aristocratic music lover showed enthusiasm for the secular vocal music he heard at the court and, at the end of his trip, requested an anthology for his personal pleasure; it was compiled and copied with great care and beautiful calligraphy by Claudio de la Sablonara, main scripter-copyist-of the Royal Chapel. The collection contains seventy-five pieces, including Inchthe best songs that are sung in this court,Inch according to the compiler. This important source, preserved at Munich's Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, features poems in Spanish and Italian metric forms. There are fewer examples of the latter merely eight compositions written in liras [six-verse stanzas] and one sonnet. The Castilian forms, on the other hand, are represented by five romances [ballads] without a refrain, twenty-nine with a refrain, eighteen letrillas [lyrical poems], eleven romances with a lyrical poem at the end, two series of seguidillas, and several decimas [ten-verse stanzas].

The contribution to the Verdi Year 2013 by OehmsClassics is this recording of three concertante performances from the Stadttheater in Gie+ƒen made in December 2012. Chief Music Director Michael Hofstetter stood on the podium, ensuring a highly dramatic, ideal Verdi sound.