Rameau / Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment - Anacreon 1754 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

P. Hindemith - Clarinet Chamber Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/25/2003

On this , accordion virtuoso Teodoro Anzellotti dedicates himself to harpsichord pieces that he selected personally. Born in Apulia in southern Italy, Teodoro Anzellotti grew up near Baden-Baden. He pursued his accordion studies at the Hochschulen in Karlsruhe and Trossingen and quickly achieved victories at various international competitions. Since the 1980s he has been a regular guest at the major festivals and with leading orchestras. Teodoro Anzellotti has successfully contributed to integrating the accordion into the sphere of classical music. This has occurred principally through his service to New Music through his development of performing techniques he has enlarged the tone-color capabilities and sonic profile of his instrument. More than 300 new works have been written for Teodoro Anzellotti, by composers such as George Aperghis, Brice Pauset, Heinz Holliger, Toshio Hosokawa, Mauricio Kagel, Michael Jarrell, Isabel Mundry, Gerard Pesson, Matthias Pintscher, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Marco Stroppa, Jörg Widmann und Hans Zender. Luciano Berio created for him his Sequenza XIII, which Mr. Anzellotti premiered in Rotterdam in 1995 and subsequently performed at major festivals worldwide. Since 1987 he has taught at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, and since 2002 at the Musikhochschule Freiburg i'm Breisgau as well. His discography embraces a spectrum reaching from Bach and Scarlatti to Janácek and Satie to John Cage and Matthias Pintscher.

Giselle is based on a legend according to which the ghosts of unmarried girls return to seek revenge on the living. The Wilis had already been described in a story in Heinrich Heine's de l'Allemagne, although Heine received no credit for Giselle. The immediate inspiration for the ballet came from Théophile Gautier, spurred by his infatuation with the dancer Carlotta Grisi. Elements from Victor Hugo were to be incorporated in a libretto that was realized by the writer Jules Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges in three days, while Adam took a week to sketch the music and three to complete it, making some use of earlier material. The choreography was devised by the Paris Opéra ballet-master Jean Coralli, with Giselle's dances choreographed by Carlotta Grisi's teacher and lover Jules Perrot. Designs were by Pierre Ciceri, who had also designed the sets for La Sylphide. The ballet was first produced on 18th June 1841 at the Opéra, the Théâtre de l'Académie royale de musique, when Grisi danced Giselle, Lucien Petipa Albrecht and Adèle Dumilâtre the Queen of the Wilis, Myrthe. Various changes have been made in the ballet since 1841, not least in a number of versions given in Russia, with an early re-staging there by Perrot with Fanny Elssler, a rival Giselle, and Marius Petipa. The latter later made his own choreographic contribution to the ballet in later productions. The score includes interpolated scenes by Friedrich Burgmüller, who is best known for the peasant pas de deux in Act I of Giselle.