Michael Scholl - Cantatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Telemann / Scholl - Mitteldeutsche Barockkantaten [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/01/2012

Andreas Scholl, the Czech Ensemble Baroque and Roman Válek, introduce us to the splendid works of Frantisek Tuma - a little-known Czech composer who was a prominent musical figure in the 18th century. The musicians here perform several of his emblematic motets and cantatas composed for Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, embracing Tuma's splendid invention and intensity of expression.

The curiosity of the countertenor Andreas Scholl, one of the most recognized opera singers, is well known, with his taste for rare and precious musical items. We find him here with the lute player Edin Karamazov in the embodiment of an encounter between Havana and Leipzig, between contemporary Cuba and baroque Germany. Navigating from the one to the other, the two musicians weave the fabric of a musical reverie in which Johann Sebastian Bach walks alongside the Cuban master Leo Brouwer, whose crossover works draw at once from folklore, creole roots, dance and the scholarly European tradition. These works marvelously echo the chorales, the Cello Suite and the English Folk Songs, arranged here by Brouwer himself, and dedicated to the duet. The poetic, intimate instrumentation, with an utterly limpid lute and the velvet tone-color of Andreas Scholl, becomes the delicate setting for the hushed, modest expression of the different faces of love.