Various Artists - Lucretia Borgia - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Various Artists - Music / Various [COMPACT DISCS] date 04/23/2002

On Røta, her debut album with Berlin Classics, Ragnhild Hemsing presents her Norwegian roots on the violin and Hardanger fiddle, thereby placing her identity and the link to her musical training centre stage. Central to this theme is the relationship between classical and Norwegian folk music and the contrast between the different sounds of the two instruments. Ragnhild Hemsing, in compiling Røta, has recorded works by famous Norwegian composers alongside four different folk melodies for the Hardanger fiddle from her homeland. InchI find it very interesting to combine the repertoire of composers who were inspired by folk music and the traditions of their individual homelands,Inch is how Hemsing explains her choice of works for this album. Ole Bull, Edvard Grieg, Johan Svendsen and Johan Halvorsen are famous Norwegian composers of the nineteenth century, whose music gives her a cozy, reassuring feeling of InchhomeInch. Together with Mario Häring at the piano and Benedict Kloeckner on cello she embarks on a journey through her native country's sound world. All of the composers featured on the album were closely affiliated with their homeland and were in contact with each other, exchanging ideas. Bull, for instance, provided Grieg with inspiration, who in his turn was a very close friend of both Halvorsen and Svendsen. The beauty of Norway, it's characteristic traits and landscape, is palpable; it can be heard and sensed in the music. Grieg's Lyric Suite (op. 54) is a reflection of mystic nature, with reminiscences of quiet nights, hiking outdoors and finally the March of the Trolls.

L'incoronazione di Poppea is a milestone in the history of music and the high point of the early baroque. This recording avails itself of an international cast and period instrument ensemble including established performers and young talents from Italy, France, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Albania, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, China, Mongolia and Korea. Conductor Federico Bardazzi has analyzed the expressive aspects of the score so that the music would bring out the nature of the characters and has worked on the variety of tone colour available in the basso continuo associated with the InchaffettiInch throughout the opera and hence the association of particular instruments with the main characters. The instrumental arrangements are highly diversified, ranging from sopranino and guitar, through passages for strings only to exuberant tutti sections with percussion. A hallmark of Bardazzi's approach to performance of 17th century repertoire is the interaction of treble instruments with voices in choral numbers, duets, versified pieces and airs and also foregrounding those instruments in certain sections of the opera identified with a given character. The many tone colours of this broad palette valorize the instrumental writing in the vocal numbers, which is in keeping with the dictates of Monteverdi's seconda prattica.