Robin Blaze; Peter Holman: The Parley of Instruments
Release Date: 01 March 2001
Label: Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 034571172255
Genres: Classical Orchestral
Description
Sacred music underwent drastic and sudden change in the 1620s. The polychoral style of Giovanni Gabrieli was replaced. Instead of lavish writing for divided choirs, the emphasis was now on a few solo voices, while Gabrieli's opulent groups of cornetts, violins and trombones were replaced by much smaller groups usually consisting just of strings. At the same time, there was much more emphasis on virtuosity, and the grandeur of the Gabrieli style was replaced by much more intimate one based on the idioms of secular music. Monteverdi, maestro di capella at St Mark's in Venice from 1613, used this new concerted style extensively in his later church music, but it was developed to its fullest extent in the 1630s and 40s by his colleagues and followers, such as Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti and Giovanni Rovetta, and it was still current in the 1680s, when Giovanni Legrenzi was working at St Marks. (Works by all can be found here.)
This recording is a survey of this rich and still little-known repertory, concentrating on music for a solo male alto voice with strings. Venetian churches, like their counterparts elsewhere in Italy, seem to have used castrati or falsettists rather than boys to sing the upper parts of church music, and so there is a wealth of material from the period suitable for modern countertenors.
Tracklisting
Mishka Rushdie Momen
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Takacs Quartet
Simon Callaghan, Sinfonieorchester St Gallen
Cinquecento
Andrey Gugnin
El Leon de Oro / Peter Phillips
Piers Lane
Eric Guo, Oh! Orchestra, Vaclav Luks
Hyuk Lee (piano), Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrzej Boreyko
Anna Gourari, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana & Markus Poschner
Vladimir Delman; Milan RAI Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Schippers; Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della Rai; New York Philharmonic Orchestra; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Liepaja Symphony Orchestra
Johanna Domotor; Meesun Hong Coleman; Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Josef Krips; Various Orchestras
