Various Artists - Cieco Amor - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

A young ensemble of instrumentalists and singers revives the precious historical practice of singers accompanying themselves, thus producing a wholly new sound in music usually assigned to unaccompanied voices. With Concerto di Margherita, self-accompanied singing becomes 'collective' for the first time in our era, and is amplified in a shared gesture in which all the members of the group - playing and singing together with extraordinary coordination - produce a sonority unprecedented in this repertory. Created at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, the group (which is named after the Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga) performs as a consort of five voices, theorbo, harp, viola da gamba, guitar and lutes, inspired by the Concerto delle dame of Ferrara. The recording debut of Concerto di Margherita presents arrangements of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works (madrigals, villanellas and canzonas), drawing on music by de Wert, Gastoldi, Monteverdi and the 'blind man's buff' scene from Giovan Battista Guarini's Il pastor fido (1580).

Various Artists - Roma Amor / Various [COMPACT DISCS] date 08/01/2007

From the apparition of the stile rappresentativo (Monteverdi's famous Lettera Amorosa) and the monophonic madrigal (Frescobaldi, Negri), to the heyday of bel canto (Carissimi, Stradella, Melani), to it's parody (with the very burlesque and unpublished Lettera del Signor Carlo Antonio Benati alla Signora Vittoria Tesi by Marcello), the letter in music is attempted in the golden age of Italian cantata, by numerous composers. La Gioannina reveals a hidden and exemplary face of the Italian cantata, following it's echoes to a contemporary creation by Vincent Bouchot on unpublished texts of a great poet of our time, Michel Butor. The Gioannina ensemble joins the harp and the lute with their delicate strings for a curious and free exploration of these musical pieces. The ensemble was founded in 2012 by Remi Cassiagne and Nanja Breedijk. In collaboration with Francoise Masset, it made two recordings of Orazio Michi dell'Arpa.