Huelgas Ensemble
The Huelgas Ensemble, directed by its founder Paul van Nevel, began as the result of the previous generation's work in early music performance, led by, among others, Thomas Binkley and David Munrow. Remarkably, after more than 50 years, the ensemble retains a sense of excitement, innovation, and discovery, long after the mass recording industry began to cover the esoteric sounds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
While at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis in Switzerland, van Nevel founded the Huelgas Ensemble in 1971, borrowing the name from the Codex Las Huelgas, as a rediscovered instrumentation of cornettos, sackbuts, recorders, and crumhorns were jubilantly being applied to early music performances. He remained the group's artistic director as of the early 2020s. The Huelgas Ensemble then sat at the center of the movement toward "authentic" performance practices, and its interpretations were strongly influential. As the scholarly and performative norms for medieval music have changed, so has the sound of Huelgas, but the ensemble has retained a mantle of eccentricity and innovation. In 1990, the group's vast recording catalog was founded with an album on the Newton Classics label featuring Antoine Brumel's Missa Et ecce terrae motus.
Nearly every aspect of director van Nevel's performances has been subject to experimentation over his career. From the group's inception, reliable and evocative ornamentation was a goal for both instrumentalists and singers. The ensemble constantly upsets expectations through scoring and orchestration. A 1994 program of Music for King Janus of Nicosia presents some pieces at half or less the expected tempo, losing the text but richly extending the pungency of dissonances. In the same year, Huelgas released a recording of the Lassus Lagrime di San Pietro juxtaposed with a performance by an all-vocal ensemble led by Philippe Herreweghe. A 1999 recording dedicated to Alexander Agricola includes some striking chromatic manipulations of the so-called "Secret Chromatic Art." At all times, van Nevel's approach to his repertory has been fearlessly innovative, despite criticism both from scholars and from other performers.
Another area of van Nevel's musical boldness -- that of musical repertory -- has been perhaps the ensemble's greatest contribution to the musical world. The director's scholarly interests have led him toward little-known manuscripts -- the Turin manuscript (1985), the Naples collection of L'Homme Armé Masses (1990), the Huelgas Codex (1999) -- and less-appreciated composers, including Gombert (1993), Constanzo Festa (1994), Mattheus Pipelare (1996), Pierre de Manchicourt (1998), Matteo da Perugia (1998), and Alexander Agricola (1999). The Huelgas Ensemble brought out the only "complete works" recording of Johannes Ciconia as early as 1982 and undertook a fascinating collaboration with the Portuguese singers of fado called Tears of Lisbon. In each case, the lively and compelling performances have stretched musical boundaries.
The Huelgas Ensemble has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical, among others. It has won numerous awards, including two Diapason d'Ors, Caecilia Prizes, the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, and four Echo Klassiks. In 2019, van Nevel led the Huelgas Ensemble on the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi album The Ear of Christopher Columbus. In 2023, the group returned after a COVID-19 hiatus with the album Ludwig Daser: Polyphonic Masses; Daser was a German contemporary of Orlande de Lassus whose work has been little recorded.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
Artistas semelhantes
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Ludwig Daser: Polyphonic Masses
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 24/03/2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Wolfgang Rihm : Et Lux
Huelgas Ensemble, Minguet Quartett, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por ECM New Series em 27/03/2015
Qobuzissime24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Landscape of the Polyphonists
Huelgas Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 25/03/2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Ciconia: The Complete Works
Huelgas Ensemble / Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por Pavane Records em 01/01/1982
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
En Albion: Medieval Polyphony in England
Huelgas Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 02/07/2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Max Reger: Melancholy (Vocal Works)
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 19/04/2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Magic of Polyphony
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 28/08/2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Treasures of Claude Le Jeune
Secular Vocal Music - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 06/04/2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Magic of Polyphony
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 28/08/2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Johannem
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 28/07/1995
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Ear of Christopher Columbus
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 24/05/2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Francesca Caccini: La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (Live)
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 20/04/2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Richafort: Requiem
Classical - Lançado por harmonia mundi em 15/03/2002
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Simone de Bonefont: Missa pro Mortuis (Live Recording)
Huelgas Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por Cypres em 01/04/2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
La Oreja de Zurbarán
Huelgas Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por Cypres em 12/01/2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Utopia Triumphans: The Great Polyphony of the Renaissance
Classical - Lançado por Sony Music Media em 12/09/1995
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
La poesia cromatica
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Lançado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi em 18/06/2009
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lamentations from the Renaissance
Huelgas Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por harmonia mundi em 26/03/1999
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Ear of the Huguenots
Classical - Lançado por Sony Music Classical Local em 28/07/2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Codex Las Huelgas: Music from 13th Century Spain
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 21/05/1993
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Jacobus de Kerle: "Da Pacem Domine"
Huelgas Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel
Classical - Lançado por harmonia mundi em 09/01/2006
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo