After their successful interpretations and CD recording of Schuberts works for four hands, these two Belgian pianists are now devoting their attention to a varied programme of works by Mozart. They have chosen Mozarts only sonata for two pianos, a sonata for four hands and two solo pieces for the piano, including the much-loved Rondo in A minor, KV 511.
Containing more than 250 compositions, most of which are anonymous, the imposing Buxheim manuscript is important evidence of the rich tradition of instrumental music that developed in the courts of southern Germany between 1440 and 1470. Although most of the music is secular, a fifth of the manuscript consists of religious music linked to the Marian devotions. Tasto Solo rediscovers this refined, virtuoso repertoire, which completes its trilogy of German 15th century repertoire.
The beautiful and intelligent Josephine Brunsvick was probably Beethovens mysterious immortal beloved. He gave her piano lessons and honoured her with several pieces, including the Andante favori and the variations on Ich denke dein. However, there was another Josephine in Beethovens life, Josephine von Clary-Aldringen, a singer and talented mandolin player. Beethoven wrote his pieces for mandolin and piano for her. Beethovens famous contemporary Johann Nepomuk Hummel also wrote an impressive piece for these instruments.
Graindelavoix presents unique works published around the year 1600 by the Antwerp printers Plantin and Phalesius. They are works that have never been performed or recorded before by international polyphonic composers such as Lobo from Portugal, the Italian Orazio Vecchi and the Franco-Flemish masters de la Hèle and de Gaucquier. Let yourself be moved by this polyphonic music sparkling with emotion and ecstasy.
Jan Dismas Zelenka is one of the most important representatives of the Bohemian Baroque. Although he spent most of his life at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden, his music is closer to the Italian style of the Catholic Viennese Baroque than the German Protestant tradition. J.S. Bach himself was among his admirers. These poignant Lamentationes, to bible texts taken from the Book of Jeremiah, were performed during Holy Week.
No composer embodies the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque better than Claudio Monteverdi. His compositions balance on the fine line between tradition and revolutionary innovation. The aesthetic tension between them, or the combination of the two, turned out to be a source of inexhaustible artistic wealth, as can be heard from the eight collections of madrigals that Monteverdi wrote between 1587 and the end of his life. Collegium Vocale Gent interprets madrigals from the sixth and eighth collections with abundant expression and a wealth of colour and texture.