Leo / Ensemble Barocco Di Napoli / Rossi - Recorder Sonatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The final volume in this critically acclaimed series presents the last 18 of the one hundred magnificent and varied secular vocal works contained in the so-called Guerra Manuscript. Seven of these tonos (secular Spanish songs) - five of which were written for the stage - are by Juan Hidalgo, one of the leading composers of the Spanish Baroque. Great care has been taken over the use of historically informed instrumentation of the plucked strings and especially the harp, bringing vividly to life the golden age of 17th-century Spanish composition.

The College of Music of Sant'Onofrio, one of the wonders of baroque Naples, was founded in the late 1500s as a foundling institution to train orphans and abandoned children to work as artisans. Within a few years, it's educational policy had shifted to musical training and singing and during the 1600s it was home to the finest composers in the city. They transformed the rigidly austere musical geometry of northern Europe into something wholly new, as though infusing the darkness of the north with the immense, intensely bright light of the south. Nicola Porpora was just such a composer. In 1710 the 24 year-old Porpora presented his opera Berenice in Rome with great success. While in the city, Haendel himself saw it and went to congratulate it's composer. Porpora wrote a great deal of music for religious purposes and opened a singing school which Farinelli also attended. Leonardo Leo is the other great composer from Sant'Onofrio. Almost a decade younger than Porpora, a combination of overwork and delicate health killed Leo at the relatively young age of fifty. He had already produced a number of new operas by 1738 when his reputation for music earned him the commission of a lifetime to write an opera to celebrate the wedding of Charles III and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Leo put everything else to one side and took as his subject the wedding of Psyche and Cupid. Yet despite the success of his opera for the imperial wedding, Leo continued to write music - both sacred and opera, whether serious or comic. Unsurprisingly, his name was a household word throughout Europe.

Sister imprint unfold presents a seminal collection of Tru Thoughts artists 'covers' that have helped define the tag over it's 10 year history. This compilation also includes brand new material from artists such as Quantic & his Combo Barbaro, Nostalgia 77, Lizzy Parks, Woon, Bugz in the Attic and more. 'Tru Thoughts Covers' offers a mighty selection of the most pivotal and interesting cover versions to have peppered Tru Thoughts' ten years of releases. Boasting many crossover hits from Nostalgia 77 and Alice Russell's epic take on The White Stripes; to the Quantic Soul Orchestra's version of 4hero; via The Bamboos' mod-soul reimagining of Kings of Leon; and Hot 8 Brass Band's rambunctious, world-renowned version of InchSexual HealingInch, taking Marvin Gaye to the Mardi Gras, in fine style. Plenty of people habitually pigeonhole music, but this album connects the songs of The White Stripes, Portishead, Marvin Gaye, 4hero, Max Sedgeley, Mr Scruff, Frank Sinatra, Kings of Leon, Fedde Le Grand, Michael Jackson, The Strokes, The Kooks, Eminem, Roni Size & Reprazents, The Quantic Soul Orchestra, Jeff Buckley, and Olive - and you sure-as-hell don't see those names appearing on the same sleeve notes every day!