MMXX - Sacred Cargo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Francesco Quattrocchi - Sacred Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/30/2009

Following the success of her last album, The Polish Violin, Jennifer Pike now turns to a programme of English music that represents an essential part of her musical make-up. It was the music of Elgar that first drew her to the violin, and The Lark Ascending has featured in her programming - in many versions - throughout her career. Here we have the original version for Violin and Piano from 1914, much less frequently played than the 'standard' orchestral version, but fascinating for the new light it shines on such a well-known piece. Writing it against the backdrop of the First World War, Vaughan Williams took both inspiration and the title from a poem by George Meredith. Although his first sketches for a Violin Sonata date from 1887, Elgar's Violin Sonata is one of the four late masterpieces that Elgar composed in 1918 - 19, at Brinkwells in Sussex in his final creative flush. As with The Lark, this work was composed under the shadow of the Great War. Like Elgar, Vaughan Williams wrote his only Violin Sonata towards the end of his life. Representing a culmination of the development of his compositional style, he weaves fantasy and pastoralism into the strictures of sonata form. Jennifer Pike is joined for this album by one of her regular musical partners, the pianist Martin Roscoe.

The words 'Irish blessing' are sure to make you think of the famous verse about sending a traveller on their way. It is found in German translation in the new hymn books of many Lutheran and Protestant churches. Schwetzingen chamber choir Quatro Forte, Inchtwo dozen voicesInch that Inchtruly sing as bewitchingly as if the choir had our hearts in their handsInch (Schwetzinger Zeitung), was founded in 1991. These days, the Schwetzingen choir has a privileged place in the cultural life of the Rhein-Neckar metropolitan region, having developed a varied repertoire in the course of it's twenty-seven-year existence. With works for up to 16 parts from the Renaissance to modern times, both unaccompanied and with orchestral accompaniment, the chamber choir displays great musical versatility, with special emphasis on singing the music so as to express the full meaning of the words while achieving a smoothly balanced, sensitive choral sound. Alexander Gütinger has been musical director of the ensemble since 2008. It is to his energy and vision that the choir owes it's homogeneous balance of voices and it's consequent audience recognition. The present album was recorded in the Franz-Danzi-Saal in Schwetzingen with the generous support of the City of Schwetzingen and it's Music School. This peace and security is again conveyed by the purely instrumental works on this , which owe their special timbre to the traditional Irish instruments, the flute and harp.