Wolftone - Gasser - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Following his acclaimed Linn debut, One Byrde in Hande, Richard Egarr turns to the music of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck for his new recording of fantasias, toccatas and variations. As well as being a notable composer Sweelinck was a skilled improviser and keyboard virtuoso whose knowledge of the stylistic innovations of his English contemporaries, such as Byrd and Morley, was evident in his work. Egarr performs on a harpsichord designed after Ruckers (1638); it's strict ¼-comma meantone tuning highlights the amazing chromaticism present in Sweelinck's music. This is particularly evident in the famous Fantasia Crommatica, a highly improvisatory, boundary-pushing work that showcases many of Sweelinck's innovations in keyboard composition. Within his lifetime Sweelinck was most celebrated for his variations on the popular tune Mein junges Leben hat ein Endt; Egarr relishes the intricate counterpoint which builds from the simple theme into a masterpiece of inexhaustible invention and limitless variety. A selection of fantasias and toccatas complete the programme in which Egarr's passion for the harpsichord and Sweelinck's music are enthusiastically conveyed.

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf's contemporaries called him the InchWeimar Wolf,Inch a fitting tag, inasmuch as Weimar's musical environment greatly influenced the life of this teacher, concertmaster, and organist who advanced to the post of chapel master to Duchess Anna Amalia, a noted patron of the arts. Even though he was a thorn in the flesh for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's prince of poets, he remained true to the court and his duchess over the decades. He even declined with thanks an offer from the King of Prussia, Frederick II, to succeed Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Berlin. However, the fact that Wolf highly valued Bach's empfindsamer Stil and the style of the Berlin chapel master Carl Heinrich Graun is clearly audible in his works. During recent years Wolf's instrumental music has attracted increasing attention. Now Michael Alexander Willens has recorded Wolf's oratorio Jesu, deine Passion will ich jetzt bedenken. In this work, like Graun in his Tod Jesu, the composer, who in 1756 was only a little over twenty, reflects on the Passion of Christ and relives it with deep emotion. An absolute masterpiece from the age of musical sensibility with arias of great melodic appeal that are guaranteed to leave no heart unmoved!

Deluxe edition. Through his 2020 album S16, Woodkid questions the notion of scale, from infinitely large to infinitely small, the balance of forces between human and industrial, and the idea of collective and individual responsibility for creating a world on the verge of breakdown. Accompanying us with his powerful, warm, reassuring voice laid bare, Woodkid leans, as always, towards the symphonic, the making of an entire intimate universe. The album reflects the times on a global scale moving and human.