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The Fellini Album - The Film Music of Nino Rota
Riccardo Chailly
Cinema Music - Released June 7, 2019 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Diapason d'or
What a pleasure it is to return to Riccardo Chailly, at the head of the Filarmonica della Scala, with a collection on Rota (1911-1979) and more particularly his songs written for the great films of Fellini such as Amarcord, Huit et Demi, and La Dolce Vita! Before him, another Riccardo, Muti, had dedicated, in the 1990s, two albums with Sony Classical to the film scores of the Italian composer – with one collection on his non-cinematographic corpus. Whether Rota’s music was for cinema or the concert hall was of little importance as he rolled out, to the likes of Bernard Herrmann in the United States, a style that was true to himself where one feels his genius and prowess for evoking ambiance mixed with an incredible dexterity for the most diverse genres, as can be heard in Suite taken here from La Dolce Vita. The beginning (O Venezia, Venaga, Venusia) of the following Il Casanova di Federico Fellini, in which the chiming of the pendulum evokes the tragic destiny of the character and the harmonization of somber colors creates a sea-like atmosphere, remains without a doubt one of the most striking tracks on the album. This ambiance returns in the final part, this time all the more mind-blowing (The Dancing Doll). Often influences from the East, of Chostakovitch and Khachaturian (Il Duca di Württenberg), can be heard along with more meridian styles inherited from Italian symphonists from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. A passionate album not to be missed. © Pierre-Yves Lascar/Qobuz
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Próxima Estación: Esperanza
Manu Chao
World - Released June 1, 2001 | Radio Bemba
Booklet
Clandestino, Manu Chao's first solo effort, owed its greatness to its character. It was a minimalistic, yet filled with experimentation, album. But, what's most distinctive, it was honest, direct, intimate: the personal diary of someone who had traveled a lot, not only around Latin America but through life. Unfortunately, Chao seems to lose his way a little bit in Esperanza. Apparently intended to be a continuation of what started in Clandestino, it ends being just a clone of it. The reiteration of ideas and formulas takes away from Esperanza everything that made of Clandestino a memorable piece of work. The problem with Esperanza is that Chao, instead of deepening what he proposed in his first album, seems to overfly the surface of his ideas. The consequence of this is that he transforms charm into cliché, leaving the listener with a very light flavor. Anyway, Esperanza still has a bunch of great songs ("Mr Bobby," "Mi Vida," "Trapped By Love," "Me Gustas Tú," "Bixo") and good lyrics ("Mi Vida") which amply justify its listening. Dedicated fans will find that Esperanza is not what they were expecting, yet it's really easy-going and accessible so it will end working for them as well as for casual listeners.© Alberto Moreno de la Fuente /TiVo
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Supernatural
Santana
Pop - Released June 15, 1999 | Columbia - Legacy
Distinctions
The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Luzzaschi: Il concerto segreto
La Néréide
Classical - Released September 8, 2023 | Ricercar
Hi-Res
Booklet
The idea is interesting on the face of it: the Duke of Ferrara, at his court in the late 16th century, maintained a "concerto segreto," secret concerts of three singers who also accompanied themselves on instruments. The three singers of La Néréide have performed a program based on this repertory, reproducing the original circumstances as far as possible. It is perhaps a trifle less effective on a recording, where they employ other instrumentalists for accompaniment, but this almost unknown repertory holds plenty of interest in itself. The music on the album is mostly by the melodiously named Luzzasco Luzzaschi, the Duke's court composer, with other works by his contemporary Luca Marenzio and the slightly later Claudio Monteverdi and Francesca Caccini (who makes the cut because her opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola di Alcina, the first opera by a woman, contains an excerpt calls "Le tre sirene"). This was progressive music for the time, including some of the sharp dissonances better known in the writing of Carlo Gesualdo and also the emerging texture in which melody was accompanied by a continuo. Thus, La Néréide captures the swirl of influences out of which early opera emerged, framing them in a vivid scene that will be unfamiliar, like the music in general, to most listeners. The three women have a strong sense of ensemble, and the engineering from the small Notre-Dame-des-Centeilles chapel suggests the music's original surroundings. A really interesting release for those fascinated by the late Renaissance.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni
Rachel Podger
Classical - Released March 23, 2018 | Channel Classics
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Vivaldi penned more than 500 concertos. At least 214 of these are for solo violin and orchestra, but as Michael Talbot remarks, ‘scarcely a year passes without the announcement of some fresh discovery’. So what was the ‘concerto’ to Vivaldi? What about it did he love so much to have composed so many? In the decade before Vivaldi composed Le Quattro Stagioni.Despite what this recorded collection suggests, few of Vivaldi’s instrumental works have programmatic titles. On the whole, titles gesture towards a general mood. Il Riposo and L’amoroso are examples of this indication of Affekt – indeed, both are united in their key of gleaming E major. The case of Il Grosso Mogul is stranger. There seems to be no known link between Vivaldi and the Indian court of the Grand Mughal, Akbar. The extreme virtuosity required by the soloist in the outer movements, as well as the long, fully written-out cadenzas, suggest a theatrical function. Perhaps Vivaldi performed it as a ‘theatre concerto’ as part of an opera plot set in India. French royalty, however, did play a huge role in the reception of Le Quattro Stagioni.Producer Jonathan Freeman-Attwood writes:"Working with Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque has been an object lesson in starting anew and identifying the ingredients which make ‘Le Quattro Stagioni’ great works. Virtuosity is non-negotiable here and Rachel has it in abundance. But it’s the colour, poetry, vibrancy and evocative characterisation of weather, human warmth and fragility, captured by the dynamic flux of Rachel interlocking with her colleagues in Brecon Baroque, that deliver near-unimaginable qualities in this music."
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Schütz: Italian Madrigals
Les Arts Florissants
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released October 6, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Booklet
This 2023 release is way outside the usual zone for the ensemble Les Arts Florissants and director Paul Agnew, who have specialized largely in the French Baroque. The booklet even lists an Italian language coach, but it is quite worthwhile, for these Italian-language madrigals by Schütz are sparsely recorded. They were published in 1611 while Schütz was studying in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli, and they reflect his mastery of the polyphonic Italian madrigal style. There are some splashes of chromaticism, but nothing resembling the music of Gesualdo, Marenzio, or the other late Italian madrigalists. Instead, the model is the early madrigal books of Monteverdi, which would have been very much in the air while Schütz was there. The music reflects the texts in great detail, which was one of the straws in the wind pointing toward the emergent operatic styles, and there is a certain dramatic quality that seems to prefigure the mature Schütz. This is captured well by Les Arts Florissants, essentially opera specialists, and while there is a feel suggesting that the musicians are coming to this tradition from the outside, the performances hold the listener's attention. The Philharmonie in Paris is not really the right venue for this music and gives it a remote sound, but this is, nonetheless, a valuable addition to the Schütz discography.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Supernatural (Legacy Edition)
Santana
Pop/Rock - Released June 15, 1999 | Columbia - Legacy
Distinctions
The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Divenire
Ludovico Einaudi
Classical - Released January 1, 2006 | Decca (UMO) (Classics)
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Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Concerto Köln
Classical - Released October 7, 2016 | Berlin Classics
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Booklet
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5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
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Four Seasons
Arabella Steinbacher
Classical - Released June 19, 2020 | PentaTone
Hi-Res
Booklet
Star violinist Arabella Steinbacher presents Antonio Vivaldi’s world-famous Four Seasons alongside Astor Piazzolla’s Cuatro estaciones porteñas, creating a lively combination of baroque and tango. The enormous popularity of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons tends to make us forget the original and ground-breaking nature of these violin concertos. Coupling them with Piazzolla’s tango-inspired Four Seasons of Buenos Aires makes both pieces sound fresher than ever before, thanks to Steinbacher’s personal engagement with the repertoire and the inspired accompaniment of the Münchener Kammerorchester. Piazzolla’s music is performed here in a new arrangement for violin and string orchestra by Peter von Wienhardt, whose Strauss song arrangements on Steinbacher’s previous album "Aber der Richtige…" (2018) were extensively praised by the press. © Pentatone
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Toda la vida, un día
Sílvia Pérez Cruz
Miscellaneous - Released April 21, 2023 | Sony Music Entertainment
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Omara Portuondo (Buena Vista Social Club Presents)
Omara Portuondo
Latin Jazz - Released September 6, 2019 | World Circuit
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A beautifully executed and produced album by Omara Portuando, the only woman to appear on the original Buena Vista Social Club recordings. Portuando, who is one of Cuba's most acclaimed musicians and a featured performer at the Tropicana, has shown here that, at 70, she still possesses the qualities that helped develop her stardom on her native island. This recording, which covers a variety of traditional musical styles, from son to guajira to bolero, makes it easy to see why critics have called her the Edith Piaf of Cuba and "The Fiancée of Feeling." The style, especially on the second track, "He Perdido Contigo," evokes a nostalgic, old-fashioned sentiment, and the songwriting is classic. Featured performers include Rubén González on piano, Eliades Ochoa and Compay Segundo on guitar, and a full string section including Angel and Arelis Zaldivar. The performances are lively and tight, creating an album that feels nearly perfect. A full set of liner notes, including English translations of all of the lyrics, makes the album even more accessible.© Stacia Proefrock /TiVo
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Islands - Essential Einaudi
Ludovico Einaudi
Classical - Released June 27, 2011 | Decca (UMO) (Classics)
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Leyendas
Thibaut García
Classical - Released September 2, 2016 | Warner Classics
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Booklet
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5 de Diapason
Many young European guitarists are jockeying for the position of inheritor to the greats of the instrument in the late 20th century, but this debut release from the 22-year-old Spanish-French guitarist Thibaut Garcia serves notice of strong competition indeed. The program of mostly Spanish favorites has a few novelties: the fabulous arrangement for solo guitar of Astor Piazzolla's Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Buenos Aires Four Seasons) by Brazilian guitarist Sergio Assad; the short piece by Antonio Jiménez Manjón; and the guitar-and-cello version of Falla's Siete canciones populares españolas. But the real attraction is the incredible fluidity of Garcia's playing. The Piazzolla pieces are, in his hands, the most rhythmic of the bunch. Sample the Invocación y danza of Joaquín Rodrigo for an idea of both Garcia's smoothness and suavity and the perfect fit it makes with Erato's engineering work, accomplished at the Maladrerie Saint-Lazare in Beauvais. A maladrerie is a leper hospital, and this one is well known as a concert venue with sound that somehow manages to be both intimate and profound. For guitar music, the results here would be difficult to improve upon, with total clarity in Garcia's difficult runs and not a bit of extraneous noise. This is a remarkable meeting of performer and venue, and the whole thing is a rare pleasure that will lead listeners to rediscover some familiar favorites.© TiVo
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non è la fine
Yiruma
Classical - Released May 12, 2023 | Universal Music Ltd.
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Gesualdo: Madrigals
La Compagnia del Madrigale
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released March 18, 2022 | Glossa
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Booklet
There are two current complete works of Carlo Gesualdo’s Madrigals. Begun in 2013, the work by La Compagnia del Madrigale brings together the voices of the finest Italian Baroque singers, as well as those of Rossana Bertini, Giuseppe Maletto and Daniele Carnovich (the trio who founded La Compagnia del Madrigale in 2008). All of them were originally members of the ensemble La Venexiana.The harmonic complexity of Gesualdo's work is a musical mountain and it’s difficult to climb. After the first two highly acclaimed volumes devoted to Book 3 and Book 6, here is the First Book. It was composed in 1594 during his stay in Ferrara with the composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi and the renowned women’s ensemble Concerto delle Donne. Luzzaschi was already cultivating the poignant chromatism that Gesualdo, an extravagante native of Naples, would go on to include in his own compositions.After the dissonance and dizzying harmonic shifts in the first two volumes, this First Book of Madrigals for five a capella voices feels more classical, especially as our madrigalists know exactly how to make the rich polyphony pop: with fluidity, purity and softness. It’s impossible not to admire the vocal quality, the intensity of expression and supple melismas contained within this incredible music. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Islands - Essential Einaudi
Ludovico Einaudi
Classical - Released June 27, 2011 | Decca (UMO) (Classics)
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Respighi: The Complete Orchestral Music
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma
Classical - Released May 1, 2015 | Brilliant Classics
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