Ludwig van Beethoven - The Piano Concertos

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Ronald Brautigam and Andrew Parrott offer these familiar pieces in what could best be described as modern-instrument performances informed by period-instrument practice. Brautigam, who’s well known as a fortepiano player, here uses a Steinway concert grand piano, though he and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra nevertheless take a largely intimate view of the music. Perhaps it’s the relatively small string-strength coupled with a lack of vibrato that makes some of the more forceful passages in the tuttis sound a bit undernourished, but the playing is refreshingly alert throughout, with tempos noticeably on the fast side.

contents:

CD 1

Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37

CD 2

Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, WoO 4

Rondo in B-Flat Major, WoO 6

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19

CD 3

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58

Piano Concerto in D Major, Op. 61a

CD 4

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73, "Emperor"

Fantasia in C Minor, Op. 80, "Choral Fantasy"

Ronald Brautigam, piano

Norrköping Symphony Orchestra

dir. Andrew Parrott

W.A. Mozart - Requiem (ed. Beyer)

14 tracks - MP3 192 Kbps - RAR 102 Mb

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This recording has received 'rave' reviews in both Gramophone (July 2004) and BBC Music Magazine (October 2004)

Beethoven called Mozart's Requiem "wild and terrible", and that's what we get in Harnoncourt's new recording. Ominous dread hangs from every note of the dark opening measures, the Rex tremendae and Confutatis are driven with terrifying strength, and the supplications of the Lacrimosa, with their weeping stabbings of the orchestra, are freighted with emotional power. The Tuba mirum duet of bass soloist and trombone has a beauty almost never achieved in other readings. Nor does Harnoncourt overstep the stylistic boundaries of this classical-era work; rather, the intensity is heightened for being in the idiom of its time. Call it a Romantic reading of a Classical piece that looks forward to a more unbuttoned era. The soloists couldn't be better; the orchestra is first-rate, the chorus, sensational, singing with a sense of color, line, and emotion. Harnoncourt uses the Beyer edition of Süssmayr's completion of the work, and Mozart's unfinished original manuscript can be! accessed via a CD-ROM track, which scrolls as the music plays. This release gets my vote as the best Mozart Requiem on disc, all the more impressive for being a live concert performance in excellent sound. --Dan Davis

Christine Schäfer, soprano

Bernarda Fink, alto

Kurt Streit, tenor

Gerald Finley, bass

Arnold Schoenberg Choir

Concentus Musicus Wein

dir. Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Handel · Mozart · Mosel - Timotheus oder die Gewalt der Musik

2 CD - MP3 192 Kbps - 2 RAR 172 Mb

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This recording is of a concert that marked the bicentenary of the founding of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and reconstructed its opening performance, which featured several hundred musicians (professional and amateur) performing Mozart’s re-orchestration of Handel’s Alexander’s Feast – as Timotheus oder Die Gewalt der Musik – with some further touching up (such as the addition of a bass drum, and extra brass) by Franz Ignaz von Mosel, who changed the title to Timotheus and also conducted. Nikolaus Harnoncourt used the original orchestral parts in preparing this performance. A work praising the power of music was an obvious choice for the society’s opening concert, but it also had political overtones as the Austrian Empire’s musical proficiency was represented as a factor in the part it played in the defeats inflicted upon Napoleon that year.

contents:

W.A. Mozart: Timotheus oder die Gewalt der Musik KV 591

Große Kantate nach G.F. Händels "Das Alexander-Fest" HWV 75

Highlights

Roberta Invernizzi, soprano

Werner Güra, tenor

Gerald Finley, bass

Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien

Concentus Musicus Wien

dir. Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Alessandro Stradella - La Susanna

2 CD - MP3 192 Kbps - RAR 170 Mb

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La Susanna, a late oratorio composed in Genoa in 1681, the year before the composer's death. La Susanna belongs to a popular 17th-century sub-genre termed oratorio erotico because it employed biblical stories concerned with love or the sensual aspect of women. It is typical of the kind of plot that might be used to attract an audience drawn to the prayer halls to be given Bible "instruction" in easily accessible form. The concept was a mark of counter-Reformation propaganda and stories such as those of Judith or Susanna were popular not only in music, but also literature and painting. Indeed, the cover of the present set is illustrated by a fine painting by Artemisia Gentileschi depicting the beautiful naked Susanna recoiling from the gaze of the two leering elders. The story, which appears in Chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel, goes on to relate how the elders (judges in the oratorio), foiled in their attempted rape of Susanna as she bathed, accuse the virtuous wife of adultery. Her death is averted only by the arrival of the young prophet Daniel, whose questioning of the judges reveals discrepancies in their stories, thus proving Susanna's innocence. The outcome therefore sends the congregation away with a dual moral ringing in their ears: evil lustfulness and perjury will both be punished. The mostly brief vocal numbers are distinguished by a formal variety that includes through-composed arias in addition to those in AB form, da capos, and a number of duets and trios, the last of which features some ravishing madrigalian writing for the disgraced judges and the exonerated Susanna. The score as a whole is indeed full of beautiful ideas illuminated by Stradella's supreme mastery of counterpoint.

Artemisia Gentileschi - Susanna e i vecchioni (1610 c.) 

contents:

Sinfonia avanti l'oratorio

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.1 Choro à tre

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.2 Aria (Testo)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.3 Aria (Giudici I)

Recitativo (Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Giudici I)

Nr.5 Duetto (Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Giudici I)

Recitativo (Giudici I)

Nr.6 Aria (Giudici I)

Recitativo (Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.7 Choro à tre

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.8 Aria (Susanna)

Nr.9 Aria (Susanna)

Recitativo (Susanna)

Nr.10 Aria (Susanna)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.11 Aria (Testo)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.12 Duetto (Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Susanna)

Nr.13 Duetto (Arioso) (Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Susanna, Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.14 Choro à cinque

Nr.15 Aria (Testo)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.16 Aria (Susanna)Recitativo (Susanna)

Nr.17 Aria (Susanna)

Recitativo (Testo)

Recitativo (Giudici I)

Nr.18 Duetto (Giudici I e II)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.19 Aria (Susanna)

Recitativo (Susanna)

Recitativo (Testo)

Recitativo (Daniele)

Nr.20 Aria (Daniele)

Recitativo (Daniele)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.21 Aria (Daniele)

Recitativo (Daniele e Guidice I)

Nr.22 Aria (Daniele)

Recitativo (Daniele e Guidice II)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.23 à tre (Daniele e due Giudici)

Recitativo (Giudici I)

Recitativo (Testo)

Nr.24 Choro à tre

Nr.25 Choro à cinque

Marjanne Kweksilber (soprano - Susanna)

Judith Nelson (soprano - Daniele)

René Jacobs (alto - Testo (narrator)

Martyn Hill (tenor - Guidice II (judge II)

Ulrik Cold (bass - Guidice I (judge I)

Ingrid Seifert (baroque violin)

Hajo Bäss (baroque violin)

Jap van ter Linden (baroque cello)

Jeroen van ter Linden (violone)

Alan Curtis (harpsichord and direction)

Konrad Junghänel (theorbo)

Argentum et Aurum

28 tracks - MP3 192 Kbps - RAR 122 Mb

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The period of the early Habsburgs, from c.1340 to c.1520, saw the development of a richly diverse musical culture in the Austrian region. This pioneering selection, the product of an extensive research project conducted at the University of Vienna, presents an overview of music in everyday life, in many cases in première recordings performed by Ensemble Leones. The music is sacred and secular, allowing the listener to eavesdrop on Tyrolean palaces, dance halls and bourgeois homes, and on the singer-poets who travelled the country where old local styles fused with the latest international fashions.

contents:

1 - Argentum et aurum

2 - Vyol - Urlaub hab der wintter 

3 - Ich fragt ain wachter 

4 - Das kchuhorn - Untarnslaf 

5 - Skak - Frolich geschrai so well wir machen 

6 - Soyt tart tempre 

7 - Or sus vous dormez trop 

8 - Durch Barbarei, Arabia 

9 - Der sunnen glanst 

10 - Do man den gumpel gampel sank

11 - Freu dich, du weltlich creatur 

12 - Zergangen ist meins herzen we 

13 - Gegrusset seistu maria 

14 - Amen 

15 - Von osterreich - Sig, sald und heil 

16 - So stee ich hie auff diser erd 

17 - Alle dei filius 

18 - My ladi, my ladi, myn happ 

19 - Seigneur Leon

20 - Gespile, liebe gespile gut 

21 - Es sassen hold in ainer stuben

22 - Ich sachs ains mals 

23 - Heya, heya nun wie si grollen 

24 - La Martinella 

25 - Pavane 

26 - Mantuaner dantz 

27 - Gottes namen faren wir 

28 - Maria zart, von edler art

Ensemble Leones

dir. Marc Lewon