Z-Ro - Crack

"Z-Ro is not a people person. Though his rhymes are replete with gunplay and tough talk, the underlying message of Houston’s reigning underground king is one of distrust. To hear Ro tell it, every friend is disloyal, every woman a gold digging groupie and the only proper response is reclusion. Call it emo-rap or call it a therapy session. When he raps suicide, he’s not talking about car doors.

So it’s disconcerting that 'Crack', roughly his tenth proper album (depending on how you’re counting certain side projects and undergrounds), opens with a blissful, almost childlike melody. Ro playfully outlines his concept – his music is a drug (this is a factual statement, not a metaphor, as any Ro junkie can verify) and he’s set to deliver 14 new songs to overdose on. The first of which, believe it or not, is a full-fledged ballad. If 'Baby Girl' is to be believed the once hardened Z-Ro has finally found love. 'No longer do I have to search / she’s a dime but she’s down to earth / it’s understood to me she gotta be my baby girl' You’d almost mistake it for sarcasm, if he didn’t seem so damn earnest.

Fortunately (for the listener, not so much for Z-Ro – keep your head up, buddy) this is a curveball, a brief moment of misplaced happiness. Almost immediately after declaring his undying loyalty to this nameless lady friend he’s back on the loner tip, finding solstice only in dead presidents. He intimates: 'My grandmother told me the pillow don’t love you back / but God never took one of my ribs and made me a woman, I’ma concentrate on my stacks.' Or, more to the point, 'bitch you ain’t gotta call my phone.' But Crack isn’t just about drama. Z-Ro's also a spitter in the purest sense, the midpoint between 2Pac's raw emotion and Bone's singsong technicality. The screwed '25 Lighters' finds him freestyling for a good nine minutes straight just because he can.

The production, split between Ro himself and underground H-Town stalwarts like Cory Mo and Mr. Lee is appropriately morose. Post-Screw, the above ground Houston sound has mostly turned larger then life, more showboating car show buzz than promethazine burn out. In Z-Ro's hands it’s just mournful (and, in some ways, much closer to DJ Screw's original vision). Consider Biggie's once grandiose boasts of 'large estates with larger steaks'. Now slowed to a crawling hook on 'Made' they evoke a suffocating emptiness. Z-Ro sees straight through the vapidity of bottle popping models and a prime cut fillet. Self made millionaire or not, he’s still alone." (Review by Andrew Nosnitsky for HipHopDX. See here.)

1. Crack (Intro)

2. Baby Girl

3. Here We Go

4. Call My Phone

5. If That's How You Feel

6. Lonely

7. Made

8. The Mo City Don

9. Top Notch

10. Rollin

11. Tired

12. You

13. Eyes On Paper

14. 25 Lighter

15. Paid My Dues

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Antonio Lotti; Jan Dismas Zelenka; Johann Sebastian Bach

"The dictates of fashion were a powerful factor in music, too, over the centuries, exercising a substantial influence on the complex interaction between composers, their patrons and their public. Music went out of date in the space of a few decades - sometimes in the space of a few years. And this meant that many works that delighted the ear when they were first heard were soon forgotten again. Changing fashions consigned them to the recesses of musical archives, with only a handful of scholars and devoted librarians still aware of their existence.

"One exception to this rule was sacred music. Since the Reformation at the latest, with the processes of denominational rethinking that it triggered, the Church tended increasingly to preserve what it deemed to be worthwhile, and to keep these values present in people's minds. Thus the strict counterpoint with its deliberate outward plainness that was developed in the 17th century from the legacy of Palestrina and other Late Renaissance masters, and was elevated to the ideal of a time-honoured stile antico, remained the central point of reference for many composers of religious music in the 18th century. These composers studied and made use of the 'old style' in some cases in its pure form, in others by adapting it sensitively to suit the taste of their own time.

"Jan Dismas Zelenka, Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Lotti - all three composers had a good command of the traditional church style and its adaption for which they were admired by contemporaries. And although they never actually met, their biographies are connected through Zelenka.

"Lotti was born in 1667 in Venice and spent most of his life in his native city, where - like so many successful composers of his time - he worked both as a church musician (he was organist at St. Mark's) and as an opera composer. In 1717 he was given leave from his duties in Venice to spend two years at the Dresden court, where he enjoyed huge success. He returned to La Serenissima in 1719, remaining there until his death in 1740. He wrote five operas for Dresden, and also worked in the Hofkirche church together with the Italian musicians who had accompanied him to the city known as 'Florence on the Elbe'. A substantial number of sacred works by Lotti bear witness to this: some of them he wrote especially for Dresden, others he brought with him from Italy.

"When Lotti took up his position, Zelenka had already been playing the double bass in the Dresden court orchestra for a few years. But while Lotti was in Dresden, Zelenka spent most of his time in Vienna in the retinue of Friedrich August II, the heir to the Saxon throne. And in the city on the Danube, he took the opportunity to study with the kapellmeister at the Imperial court, Johann Joseph Fux, who was one of the most respected teachers of classical counterpoint. Zelenka also accumulated a collection of manuscript scores of the works of old masters while in Vienna, which he later made use of for his own compositions.

"After his return to Dresden, Zelenka was mainly responsible for the Catholic church music at court. In addition to composing works of his own - masses, music for vespers, litanies and compositions for Easter week -, his duties also included obtaining and arranging other composers' works. Among the music that Zelenka arranged for performance in the Dresden church there are also compositions by the erstwhile court kapellmeisters Antonio Lotti, including a mass in G minor/G major that consists only of a Kyrie and a Gloria; to distinguish this from other masses, Zelenka gave this one the name 'Missa Sapientiae'. [...]

"According to Bach's song Carl Philipp Emanuel, Zelenka was one of the composers who Johann Sebastian Bach knew personally and held in high regard. No documents have come to light so far providing any indication of how the two composers communicated, but Bach obviously had access to Zelenka's collection of scores, as there was a copy of the latter's arrangement of Lotti's 'Missa Sapientiae' in his own music library.

"For Easter week 1738, Zelenka made a setting of the penitential psalm 'Miserere mei, Deus' as a sequence of strongly contrasting movements. The complete text of the psalm itself appears in the second of the five movements; it is followed by the doxology 'Gloria Patri', which is spread over two movements. The two outer movements are choruses featuring only the agitated rhythms, first the orchestral parts penetrate one another with much dissonance, then the choir comes in and unfolds a lament of colossal intensity. Unlike many of his fellow composers, such as Lotti or Leonardo Leo, who a vividly discriptive text inspired to a rich variety of emotions and intonation, Zelenka opted for an approach that is nothing short of archaic. From his collection of music of the old masters - copies of scores that he had accumulated in Vienna - Zelenka picked out a recercar by Girolamo Frescobaldi and took the latter's strictly contrapuntal, four-part setting as the basis for his own vocal writing, which adheres pretty closely to the 100-year-old model. Under these circumstances, it is impossible for the music to reflect specific expressive nuances in the text - and indeed, this was clearly not Zelenka's intention. The dignity of the Old Testament text is emphasised by the venerable character of Frescobaldi's austere style. However, the core message of the psalm, a plaintive emotional outcry, does not simply recur like a motto in the contrapuntal writing, but also forms the unusually radical framework of the piece, and this not only regards the almost shocking extremes in the dynamics. Even in the context of Zelenka's many highly unconvential compositions, 'Miserere mei, Deus' is in a class of its own.

"Johann Sebastian Bach likewise had frequent recourse to both his own works and those of other composers, not least because, as cantor of St. Thomas's, Leipzig, he had an enormous workload to cope with. He originally wrote the cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen', BWV 12, in Weimar back in 1714, and he performed it again ten years later in Leipzig. On this occasion, he changed the original score, transposing it up by a tone. What's more, Bach later used the main part of the opening chorus, a chaconne that develops over a chromatically-led lament in the bass line, in his B minor Mass, where it appears, transposed, structurally enlarged and fitted with a new text, as the 'Crucifixus' in the Credo.

"The combination of chromatic writing and motet style is something that Bach's cantata shares with several settings of the 'Crucifixus' by Lotti, which with their radicalisation of classic counterpoint are among his most impressive works. But in some of his complete mass movements, too, Lotti also achieves moments of compelling expressiveness with similar means. Large parts of the 'Missa a tre cori', which he wrote in and for Venice, but also performed in Dresden, are laid out so that a constant alternation of intensely expressive, dense counterpoint with more loosely-woven passages ensures variety. As for the text itself, which is musically reinterpreted time after time as no other text had been since the Middle Ages: Lotti elicits entirely new facets from it. Thus the dance-like blithe spirits of the 'Gloria in excelsis Deo' is followed by an abrupt change of mood for the '...et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis', a thought-provoking motet with obbligato orchestra. Contrasts like this occur throughout the work, but Lotti's mastery of his art - recognised by both Zelenka and Bach - is evident not least in the fact that he always manages the balancing act between different styles and expressive worlds." (Thomas Seedorf, tr. Clive Williams. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble. Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock

1. Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere In C Minor, ZWV 57: Miserere I

2. Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere In C Minor, ZWV 57: Miserere II

3. Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere In C Minor, ZWV 57: Gloria Patri I

4. Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere In C Minor, ZWV 57: Gloria Patri II

5. Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere In C Minor, ZWV 57: Sicut Erat

6. Jan Dismas Zelenka - Miserere In C Minor, ZWV 57: Miserere III

7. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: Sinfonia

8. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen'

9. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: 'Wir Müssen Durch Viel Trübsal'

10. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: 'Kreuz Und Kronen Sind Verbunden'

11. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: 'Ich Folge Christum Nach'

12. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: 'Sei Getrost'

13. Johann Sebastian Bach - Cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Zittern, Zagen', BWV 12: 'Was Gott Tut, Das Ist Wohlgetan'

14. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Kyrie Eleison

15. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Christe Eleison

16. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Kyrie Eleison

17. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Gloria In Excelsis

18. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Et In Terra Pax

19. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Laudamus Te

20. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Gratias Agimus Tibi

21. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Domine Deus

22. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Domine Filii

23. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Domine Deus, Agnus Dei

24. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Qui Tollis

25. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Qui Sedes

26. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Quoniam Tu Solus

27. Antonio Lotti - Missa A Tre Cori: Cum Sanctu Spiritu

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Christoph Willibald Gluck - Ezio

"Christoph Gluck's fame as an operatic reformer has overshadowed the fact that prior to the 1760s he was a highly successful composer of 'opera seria', a spectacle centred on virtuosic solo singing for which the da capo aria was considered the ideal vehicle. In the prevailing Italian operatic system the libretto typically contained dozens of aria texts (with the occasional duet), and these illuminated the characters' successive emotional states in response to the drama, which was carried forward in simple recitatives alternating with arias. When Gluck and his collaborator Ranieri de' Calzabigi abandoned this operatic model in favour of a more naturalistic presentation of the action, beginning with 'Orfeo ed Euridice' (1762), spectators had to fundamentally alter their mode of listening. The current revival of Gluck's pre-reform operas requires an equivalent adjustment, in reverse.

"Gluck's early preference for texts by the Roman Pietro Metastasio indicates not so much conservatism as the simple fact that Metastasio was the 'opera seria' librettist most adept at constructing a plot (typically based on ancient Greek or Roman history) and most admired for his elegant and musically effective aria texts: his poetic images frequently involved similes or metaphors conducive to musical illustration, which endeared him to singers and composers alike. His concentration on arias, to the near exclusion of ensembles and choruses, was a consequence of entrepreneurial opera companies' lack of choral singers, the star power of soloists, and audience preferences. In addition, the highly paid 'prime donne' and 'primi uomini' frequently dictated terms to composers, requiring that they tailor arias to their voices and talents.

"It was typical of 'opera seria' that the same libretto was often set to music several times over, even by the same composer. Gluck set 'Ezio' for Prague's Teatro Nuovo in 1750 and revised it substantially for Vienna's Burgtheater in 1763; Niccolò Jommelli set the libretto four times across three decades. Listening to opera thus involved a good deal of comparison, not only between settings of the same libretto but also between one performance and the next of the same opera, since singers embellished or otherwise varied their arias afresh each night, in part for the sake of spectators attending multiple performances. Even for a work as unfamiliar as Gluck's 'Ezio', modern listeners have ready points of comparison in Handel's 1732 setting for London and in the nine-year-old Mozart's setting of Massimo's aria 'Va' dal furor portata' (likewise written in London).

"'Ezio' is from the early part of Metastasio's career, written before his 1729 appointment as imperial court poet in Vienna. The basic elements of the plot are factual, drawn from ancient sources that the poet duly cites (the Metastasio scholar Don Neville has also pointed to Thomas Corneille's play 'Maximian' of 1662 as a probable, though unacknowledged, source). 'Ezio' is set in Rome, following the defeat of Attila the Hun; the adulation with which the victorious general Ezio (Aetius) is greeted upon his return arouses the envy of the emperor Valentiniano (Valentinian) III, formented also by the patrician Massimo (Maximus), who bears the emperor an ancient grudge. Onto this premise Metastasio grafted an amorous intrigue involved, additionally, Massimo's daughter Fulvia, the emperor's sister Onoria, and Ezio's friend Varo. Unlike the real-life Aetius, whom the emperor put to death, the fictional general is exonerated, in keeping with 'opera seria's obligatory 'lieto fine'. All the characters in 'Ezio' are flawed to some degree: Valentiniano is fundamentally virtuous, but cowardly and credulous; Ezio is courageous, but proud and incautious, Fulvia is loyal to her father even in support of his criminal conspiracy. Massimo is most obviously evil, but his complaint against the emperor, which spurs his misdeeds, is just. Metastasio himself recognised that he had depicted Valentiniano unflatteringly: writing in 1770 of a plan to dedicate a performance of 'Ezio' to the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, he asked 'why on earth... did they not prefer my 'Tito' to 'Ezio', in which the emperor is the third- or fourth-ranked role and of a rather uncommendable character?'.

"The libretto was commissioned by the Venetian Teatro Grimani di San Giovanni Grisostomo for its autumn 1728 season; Metastasio alluded to the venue by putting into Ezio's mouth flattering remarks about the nascent city of Venice. The music of the first setting was by the Neapolitan Nicola Porpora (later a teacher of the young Haydn), and the cast included the famed Neapolitan castratos Domenico Gizzi (Valentiniano) and Nicola Grimaldi (Ezio). The next production, with music by Pietro Auletta, was the for the 1728/9 carnival season in Rome, where by papal decree women were not permitted on the stage; the female roles were therefore taken by castratos. Conversely, in several early productions, including Handel's 1732 setting for London, the role of Valentiniano was taken by the female contralto Anna Bagnolesi. As with many Metastasian librettos, in productions of 'Ezio' subsequent to the first one the recitatives were abridged - in the 1732 London production, nearly to the point of incomprehensibility. In 1754 Metastasio himself shortened his text for the Portuguese court and was duly rewarded with a lavish silver service. Much later, Metastasio thanked the poetry Saverio Mattei for the judicious cuts he had made for a 1771 Naples production, also approving his substitution of a quartet for several arias at the end of Act Two, 'something that would have been sacrilege when I wrote [the drama]'.

"At the time Gluck wrote 'Ezio' he was still an itinerant composer, not yet settled in Vienna. His career had begun in Hapsburg-controlled Milan, where he had trained un Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and had included a stint in London. By 1747 he had joined the traveling opera troupe of Pietro Mingotti, composing an opera for a Saxon royal wedding at Pillnitz outside Dresden. Recommendations from there and from the Lombard court resulted in a prestigious commission in 1748 to set Metastasio's 'Semiramide riconosciuta' for Vienna's Burgtheater. By November of that year Gluck had rejoined Mingotti's company (now as musical director) in Copenhagen, where he wrote the celebratory opera 'La contesa dei numi', performed in April 1749. The next we hear of him is at the start of 1750 in Prague, the city where he had attended university and worked as an organist nearly two decades earlier, and where Giovanni Battista Locatelli was in his second season as head of the resident Italian opera company in the city's Kotzentheater, or Teatro Nuovo. Of the singers in the cast of 'Ezio', the tenors Settimio Canini (Massimo) and Franz Werner (Varo) had both sung in Mingotti's troupe, the former taking roles in three of Gluck's operas. Elisabetta Ronchetti, a singer of both Metastasian and comic roles, would reprise her performance as Fulvia in a 1751 Leipzig production of the opera. The Valentiniano, Antonio Francia, ended his career in Siena in 1775 with the same roles (in Gugliemi's setting); for Nicola Reginelli (Ezio) this was already his final season.

"The success of Gluck's opera is suggested by his many later borrowings from its music, and by the presence of more than a dozen Latin parodies (retextings) of its arias in the archives of Prague churches (a notated cadenza from a parody of Valentiniano's first aria is used in this recording, with slight modifications). The cuts in the libretto of the Prague 'Ezio' were sensible ones and included remarks denigrating to women, most likely removed on account of the libretto's dedication to the women of the Prague audience. Possibly inspired by the still novel phenomenon of ensemble finales in 'opera buffa', Gluck replaced three arias at the end of Act Two with a terzetto. Some further cuts have been made to make the present performance more attractive to a modern audience.

"In composing 'Ezio' Gluck was guided above all by the sense of the arias' texts, though not always in ways Metastasio would have approved. In 1751, after Gluck's move to Vienna, Metastasio declared the composer had 'un fuoco meraviglioso, ma pazza' ('has surprising fire, but is mad', in Charles Burney's 1796 translation). Throughout his career Gluck showed a willingness to trespass against the rules of part-writing and harmony in the interest of vivid characterisations and drama.

"After an italianate 'Sinfonia' in three movements (with attractive chromaticism in the minor-mode slow movement) Ezio enters to a triumphal march. Valentiniano's ensuing 'Se tu la reggi al volo' is everything one might with for in an opera's initial aria: energetic, virtuosic, and well calculated to the text - as with several 'messe di voce' (elegantly modulated sustained tones) on 'sempre' ('always'). In its shape the vocal line suggests first the eagle of the text being launched into flight, then its return (with a rising-and-falling figure, echoed in the accompaniment). The march having established his heroism, Ezio uses his initial aria, 'Pensa serbarmi, o cara', to assure his beloved of his affection, with sighing figures in the accompaniment and a caressing vocal melisma on 'amami' ('love me'). Fulvia, for whome Metastasio and Gluck had reserved an act-ending showpiece, first sings a submissive-sounding, minor-mode 'aria parlante', 'Caro padre, a me non dei', in which a typically Gluckian slowing to Adagio highlights her key phrase 'io lo so' ('I know it').

"Incongruously, the villain Massimo has the most ravishing number in the opera, 'Se povero il ruscello', the many-layered texture of which depicts, alternately, lazily and rapidly flowing waters and their respective ability to overcome obstacles. As adapted by Gluck in 'Orfeo', this same music would depict Orfeo's impressions of the Elysian Fields; its unexpected excursions into the minor mode would remain a favourite tool in Gluck's expressive arsenal. The following number, Valentiniano's 'So chi t'accese', is a declamatory air in the service of the drama, in which Gluck abandons both opening ritornello and da capo form. In the subsequent 'Se fedele mi brama il regnate', Ezio's indignation is manifest in the tightly wound energy of its accompaniment, coloratura displays and the harmony's turns toward the minor. Particularly effective is the menacing rhetorical pause in the music during his reproach 'If my sovereign would have my loyalty, [-] let him not wound my loving soul', midway through the aria's main section.

"The aria 'Ancor non premi il soglio' eschews vocal display, but is virtuosic in its manipulations of emotional tone as Onoria mocks her rival Fulvia's supposed pretensions through constant tempo changes, text repetition and a cleverly recomposed reprise of the opening section. But Fulvia prevails, musically, with her spacious and vocally ambitious 'Finché un zefiro soave', which illustrates her confidence that she will be able to navigate whatever storms come her way.

"Act Two opens with news of a failed attempt on Valentiniano's life, prompting his aria 'Dubbioso amante' (addressed alternately to Massimo and Fulvia) which cleverly reworks the content of Metastasio's original text so as to fit music borrowed from 'La contesa dei numi'. The emperor's doubtful words are a good match for the piece's off-balance main rhythmic motif and minor-mode colouration. They also provoke recriminations between his onstage auditors, which culminate in Massimo's aria 'Va' dal furor portata' ('Go, transported by your fury'), whose opening melody and fiery accompaniment vividly depict Fulvia's rage. Gluck repeatedly halts the musical discourse at Massimo's admonishments 'ti sovvenga' ('remember') and 'pensa' ('reflect').

"Ezio's reaction to his arrest, 'Recagli quell'acciaro', is realistically direct and a testimony to his fortitude. Particularly striking, in Gluck's setting, are the sinking chromatic lines that suggest Valentiniano's shame when reminded of his general's past services. Varo's subsequent aria, 'Nasce al bosco in rozza cuna' (another retexting of a piece from 'La contesa dei numi'), is of slight importance to the drama, but delightful nontheless, with lilting rhythms and sustained trills that highlight its pastoral theme. Ezio's next appearance, by contrast, is dramatically crucial. Fulvia finds that she can no longer sustain her pretence of loving Valentiniano (a ruse to deflect suspicion from Ezio) and admits that Ezio is her only love; in an exultant, accompanied recitative Ezio now claims a moral victory over Valentiniano, even as he is returned to prison. In the following aria, 'Ecco alle mie catene', chains of suspensions represent Ezio's physical chains; thereafter he addresses himself alternately to Fulvia (with a melody of heartfelt simplicity) and to the emperor (in a quicker tempo and with taunting horn calls). During the aria's ample middle section Gluck introduces a rising triplet motif that suggests Ezio's beseeching gestures toward his beloved. As he is led off, Fulvia is left to face the disdain of both the emperor and her father in the terzetto 'Passami il cor, tiranno', during which the violins play a relentless flagellating figure. The singers can only unite on the thought that this is a terrible day for all of them; during these passages 'a 3' Valentiniano's and Fulvia's vocal lines are several times left completely exposed, to powerful effect.

"In 'Peni tu per un'ingrata' near the start of Act Three, Onoria consoles herself and Valentiniano with the thought that neither is alone in disappointing love. Characters quickly accumulate on stage and Valentiniano makes a show of pardoning Ezio, though secretly planning to have him killed. Ezio's grateful reply, in the aria 'Per la memoria', uses existing music from 'La contesa dei numi' but still strikes a properly noble tone, even evoking 'memory' with its conspicuous echoing between instruments. Ezio's six-bar 'messa di voce' on 'dono' ('gift') suggests that long tones were a particular skill of the original Ezio, Nicola Reginelli.

"Valentiniano's 'Per tutto il timore' corroborates Metastasio's admission that the emperor cuts no fine figure in this opera. In this 'aria parlante' Valentiniano's unmanly fear is portrayed both in a persistent tremulous figure in the melody and in repeated harmonic twinges as he declares 'I would rather die than live like this'. Conversely, the conniving Massimo sounds convincingly sympathetic in the aria he addresses to Fulvia, 'Tergi le ingiuste lagrime', holding out as compensation for her sacrifice the promise that she will reign as Valentiniano's consort. Evocations of teardrops alternate with regal dotted rhythms in the orchestral accompaniment, as called for in the text.

"Left alone, Fulvia indulges her despair in a scene of uncommon expressive force. Tremolo strings underline her invocation of furies and of Greek tragedy in an accompanied recitative; in the aria proper, 'Ah, non son io che parlo', her breathless declamation and the fragmentary accompaniment look forward to Dorabella's 'Smanie implacabili' in Mozart's 'Così fan tutte' (where the tone is openly parodistic). Other features, too, contribute to the impression that Fulvia is unhinged: above all, her irregular phrase lengths and slowed-down declamation during repetitions of her phrase 'che delirar mi fa' ('that maddens me'), and the horns' obsessive, oracular-sounding intonations on the fifth scale degree. Following the presumed-dead Ezio's almost miraculous reappearance (thanks to Varo's deception), Valentiniano pardons even Massimo, and all unite to sing a final chorus, 'Della vita nel dubbio cammino'. Far from being perfunctory, Gluck's ensemble exhibits an impressively complex construction, with solo lines emerging from the texture to illustrate the motto that 'Innocence is that star of Heaven that guides us on our shadowy path'. (Bruce Alan Brown, 2011. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis, Sonia Prina, Max Emanuel Cencic, Ann Hallenburg, Topi Lehtipuu, Mayuko Karasawa, Julian Prégardien

1.1. Sinfonia: Allegro

1.2. Sinfonia: Andante

1.3. Sinfonia: Allegro Di Molto

1.4. Marcia

1.5. Atto I, Scena I: 'Signor, Vincemmo. Il Primo Io Sono'

1.6. Atto I, Scena I: 'Se Tu La Reggi Al Volo'

1.7. Atto I, Scena II: 'Ezio, Lascia Ch'io Stringa'

1.8. Atto I, Scena II: 'Pensa A Serbarmi, O Cara'

1.9. Atto I, Scena III: 'E Soffrirai Che Sposa Abbia La Figlia'

1.10. Atto I, Scena III: 'Caro Padre, A Me Non Dei'

1.11. Atto I, Scena IV: 'Pria Che Sorga L'aurora'

1.12. Atto I, Scena V: 'Ezio Sappia Ch'io Bramo Seco Parlar'

1.13. Atto I, Scena V: 'Se Povero Il Ruscello'

1.14. Atto I, Scena VI: 'Del Ciel Felice Dono'

1.15. Atto I, Scena VI: 'So Chi T'accese'

1.16. Atto I, Scena VII: 'Vedrem Se Ardisce Ancora'/Scena VIII: 'Fulvia, Ti Vuol Sua Sposa'

1.17. Atto I, Scena VIII: 'Se Fedele Mi Brama Il Regnante'

1.18. Atto I, Scena IX: 'A Cesare Nascondi'

1.19. Atto I, Scena IX: 'Ancor Non Premi Il Soglio'

1.20. Atto I, Scena X: 'Via, Per Mio Danno Aduna, O Barbara Fortuna'

1.21. Atto I, Scena X: 'Finché Un Zefiro Soave'

2.1. Atto II, Scena I: 'Qual Silenzio È Mai Questo!'/Scena II: 'Ogni Via Custodite, Ed Ogni Ingresso'/Scena III: 'Cesare, Invano Il Traditor Cercai'

2.2. Atto II, Scena III: 'Dubbioso Amante Cercando Aita'

2.3. Atto II, Scena IV: 'E Puoi D'un Tuo Delitto'

2.4. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Va' Dal Furor Portata'

2.5. Atto II, Scena V: 'Che Fo? Dove Mi Volgo?'/Scena VI: 'Varo, Che Rechi?'

2.6. Atto II, Scena VI: 'Recagli Quell'acciaro'

2.7. Atto II, Scena VII: 'Folle È Colui Che Al Tuo Favor Si Fida'

2.8. Atto II, Scena VII: 'Nasce Al Bosco In Rozza Cuna'

2.9. Atto II, Scena VIII: 'Olà, Qui Si Conduca Il Prigionier'/Scena IX: 'Stelle, Che Miro! Donna Infedel!'

2.10. Atto II, Scena IX: 'Ecco Ale Mie Catene'

2.11. Atto II, Scena X: 'Ingratissima Donna!'

2.12. Atto II, Scena X: 'Passami Il Cor, Tiranno!'

2.13. Atto III, Scena I: 'E Ben, Da Quel Superbo Che Ottenesti, O Germana?'

2.14. Atto III, Scena I: 'Peni Tu Per Un'ingrata'

2.15. Atto III, Scena II: 'Olà, Varo Si Chiami'/Scena III: 'Signor, Tutto Sedai'/Scena IV: 'Vedi Qual Dono'

2.16. Atto III, Scena IV: 'Per La Memoria Del Tuo Perdono'

2.17. Atto III, Scena V: 'Generoso Monarca, Il Ciel Ti Renda'/Scena VI: 'Varo, Eseguisti Il Cenno?'/Scena VII: 'Liete Novelle, Augusto'/Scena VIII: 'Massimo, Se Innocente Sei, Pensa A Provarlo'

2.18. Atto III, Scena VIII: 'Per Tutto Il Timore Perigli M'addita'

2.19. Atto III, Scena IX: 'Partì Una Volta. Ah Lascia, Mia Speme, Mio Sostegno'

2.20. Atto III, Scena IX: 'Tergi L'inguiste Lagrime'

2.21. Atto III, Scena X: 'Misera Dove Son! L'aure Del Tebro Son Queste Ch'io Respiro?'

2.22. Atto III, Scena X: 'Ah, Non Son Io Che Parlo'

2.23. Atto III, Scena XI: 'Inorridisci, O Roma'/Scena XII: 'Ah Traditori!'/Scena XIII: 'Cesare Viva. Ezio!'

2.24. Atto III, Scena XIII: 'Della Vita Nel Dubbio Cammino'

mp3,320kbps

Sun Ra - Live at Slug's Saloon

Staggering six CD, six hour collection of the Sun Ra Arkestra's residency at the infamous Slug's Saloon club in 1972. The recording quality is very muddy, but sensational moments abound from not only a group but possibly an entire art form in its creative prime. James Gavin writes of the venue:

"Past Avenue B, at 242 East 3rd Street, stood a bar whose hanging wooden sign read 'Slugs'.' According to Sounds & Fury, a jazz magazine of the day, the windows were 'usually dirty,' the front door 'hard to open.' It had two eye-level grates, out of which spilled tough-sounding jazz. According to author Paul Pines—who later opened another neighborhood jazz club, the Tin Palace—'you knew you were at the gates of the underworld.'

"Slugs' Saloon was the ultimate jazz dive: bare brick walls; hanging globe light fixtures that barely lit up the dark; pushers hovering near the men’s room; sawdust, mixed with peanut shells, on the floor. 'If someone threw up you’d just cover it up,' says saxophonist Gary Bartz, who played there often. A bar ran along the left; beat-up tables and chairs filled out the room. Slugs' was crowded with jazzmen and hardcore fans, who focused on a stage in the back." (From his Jazz Times article. See here.)

If we take this (plausibly hyperbolic) description of this infamous venue, the fervent, manic psychedelic energy of the music really takes hold and we can begin to comprehend what seeing a giant like Ra in New York in 1972 may really have been like. Released on American archival label Transparency in 2008.

1.1. Untitled (Cello, Oboe, Long Percussion Section)

1.2. Discipline #?

1.3. Instrumental Theme (Mid-Tempo Theme, Plus 7/4 Vamp Section)

1.4. They'll Come Back

1.5. Scene N Take N

1.6. Calling Planet Earth

1.7. Untitled (Trumpet Solo)

1.8. Theme Of The Stargazers

1.9. Discipline 11/Discipline #?

2.1. Unidentified (Alto Solo, Riff Theme, Ensembles And Solos)

2.2. Enlightenment

2.3. Love In Outer Space

2.4. Discipline #?/The Shadow World/Discipline #? (Organ Prelude, Theme, Alto, Applause)

2.5. Unidentified (Organ Chords, Percussion Solos, Different Theme)

3.1. Angels And Demons At Play/Watusi

3.2. Unidentified (Ra Solo)

3.3. Theme Of The Stargazers

3.4. Space Is The Place

4.1. Percussion Episode

4.2. Strange Worlds/At First There Was Nothing

4.3. Discipline/Discipline #?

4.4. Untitled Ra Solo

4.5. Calling Planet Earth

4.6. Angels And Demons At Play/Watusi

4.7. Outer Space (Is A Pleasant Place)

4.8. Discipline #27

4.9. I'll Wait For You

4.10. Untitled 9 - 10

5.1. Discipline 27-II

5.2. Theme Of The Stargazers

5.3. Space Is The Place

5.4. Untitled (Ra Solos And Ensemble Freakout)

5.5. Enlightenment

5.6. Love In Outer Space

5.7. Discipline 33

5.8. Untitled (Ra Solo)

6.1. Stardust From Tomorrow

6.2. The Shadow World

6.3. Why Go To The Moon?

mp3/320kbps

LHD - Los Angeles

Double 7" released in 2008 by noise duo Phil Blankenship and John Wiese on Blankenship's own label Troniks. High intensity, high density harsh noise that keeps up the high standard set by their long running series of 7" releases.

A. Untitled

B. Untitled

C. Untitled

D. Untitled

flac/16-bit

Per Nørgård - Der Göttliche Tivoli

"In 1921 Walter Morgenthaler, who worked between 1908 and 1919 as a doctor in the asylum at Waldau near Bern, published his much-discussed book about Wölfli. In the book he describes the patient's life and artistic work from the point of view of the doctor. In revolutionary fashion, like Hans Prinzhorn a year later, he ascribed an aesthetic dimension to the productions of the mental patient. 

"His father was a stone mason, and, at least if we can trust the information from the patient, was an intelligent man; and when he was sober also a good worker; but besides this a decided drinker who drank up his wages in 'the most notorious schnapps and fornication dives' and left his family to suffer want. Gradually he became more and more dissipated, finally turning to crime and ending up in prison. In 1875 he is said to have come back – apparently with the help of the police – to his native parish Schangnau, where he soon afterwards died in a state of delirium.

"His mother is said to have been a washerwoman. During an interview in 1895 the patient said that she led an immoral life. Nevertheless he seems to have remained attached to her.

"Adolf was born on 29th February 1864. Until he was eight years old he lived with his parents in Bern. In 1872, by his own account, he and his mother were sent with the help of the police to her native parish, the remote village of Schangnau in Emmental. His mother is reported to have been ill already on her arrival, and she died a few months later. Shortly after their arrival the boy had been taken from his mother, and he only heard of her death by chance some months later.

"One is reminded of Jeremias Gotthelf when he tells us how, at a ‘Verdinggemeinde', he was taken from his mother and given to a farmer; how at the age of eight he had to tend goats in the summer and in the winter had to do hard work in the forest; how he was often hungry, witnessed schnapps feasts and was himself seduced into drinking spirits; how as punishment for small misdemeanours and accidents ahe was bused, caned and kicked, so that he was unable to go to school, etc.

"From 1880 on he was a farm hand. Between 1881 and 1882 he worked for a farmer in Zäziwil, where the poor little farm lad, hardly eighteen, fell head over heels in love with a neighbour's daughter. When the girl's parents discovered the relationship, they forbade her to see him. This renunciation must have pained Wölfli greatly: 'I brooded, even became melancholy, and did not know what to do. The same evening I rolled around in the snow out of pure lover's grief, and lamented the happiness I had so evilly been denied.'

"He traveled to Bern, where he was employed in very hard work by a farmer. But soon he was unable to bear it there either, and he now embarked on a chequered career.

"In that spring (1890) he encountered something quite new to him, something he was apparently unable even to explain to himself: one Sunday as he was wandering aimlessly in Bremgarten, he came across a 14-year-old girl deep in the forest. At all events Wölfli was suddenly seized by 'rash thoughts', approached the child, and caught her by the arm after a brief introduction, such that she began to weep. Three men and an 'old spinster' came up and prevented anything happening. On 12th May 1895 Wölfli committed a new offence, stealing into a house in the town and trying to engage in some immorality with a little girl of only three and a half. He was surprised by the parents and handed over to the police.

"On 3rd June 1895 he was committed by warrant to the asylum Waldau for a mental examination. The declaration of the experts, which was made on 8th October 1895, concluded that Wölfli was mentally ill and of unsound mind, as well as a danger to public safety, whereupon the process was interrupted and the case files were sent to the responsible official in the cantonal government. On 23rd October he decided that Wölfli was to be placed in an asylum and kept there until he was 'mentally cured and no longer dangerous to public safety'. [Wölfli remained there until his death in 1930 – ed.]

"For the first five years in Waldau the symptoms of his illness became more and more pronounced. In the spring of 1899 we read for the first time that for a period he has been busily sawing firewood, and in November that year that he 'passes the time drawing'. In the second period it is recorded again and again how he draws, writes, composes etc. enthusiastically. For years his state of mind then alternates between irritation, innumerable hallucinations, threatening behaviour, scolding and banging about and serious acts of violence. For long periods he remains calm, when he has enough material to draw and is not disturbed by others.

"Third period: On 29th September 1917 he was transferred to solitary confinement beside the guard room on the second floor. He had no concern but to ensure that his huge heaps of papers and drawings were transferred undamaged to his new place of residence. And there he settled down again.

"But he still hallucinates a great deal. Almost every night he has to scold his voices for a while." (Walter Morgenthaler. From the liner notes.)

"The long succession of awards that Per Nørgård (b. 1932) has received for his compositions shows how important he is considered to modern music – and not only Danish music. His abundant output of symphonic and chamber music as well as his five operas to date shed their radiance far beyond the north of Europe and out into the world.

"Per Nørgård was born on 13th July 1932 in Gentofte in Greater Copenhagen. At a very early stage his teacher in composition, the Danish symphonist Vagn Holmboe, equipped him with the principle of musical ‘metamorphosis', which he saw could be developed further during his study of among other things the works of Sibelius. In 1956 he spent a year studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. From 1958 he was a teacher himself, first at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense, later at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and finally at the Royal Academy of Music in Århus, where he established an important centre for contemporary music. For many young Danish composers he became a mentor who was to influence their whole professional life. Between 1975 and 1980 he went on several journeys to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in Balinese gamelan music. It was first and foremost the percussion instruments that interested him, as in the gengs and chalungs – in versions specially made in Bali for Per Nørgård – used in 'The Divine Circus'.

"From his student years until the years around 1980 Nørgård's career as a composer can be seen as a continuous development where the aim is to create a closed harmonic totality. In purely technical terms, the infinity series, which he discovered in 1959, plays an important role. This is a principle for generating pitches which uses self-identical units to create a melodicharmonic sound universe. In this context the composer himself speaks of the musical weaving of an 'infinity tapestry'. At the rhythmic level he based his compositions on organic organizational forms, especially the Golden Section. For the musical theatre he created three operas in this period: 'The Labyrinth' (1963/67), 'Gilgamesh' (1971/72) and 'Siddharta' (1974-1979/1989).

"In 1979 Per Nørgård visited an exhibition with works by Adolf Wölfli, and this led to a crucial turning-point in his way of composing. Inspired by Wölfli's rule-free art Nørgård departed from many of the organizational forms he had cultivated hitherto, turning towards a more subjective, spontaneous and at the same timeless bright, harmonious way of writing: 'The encounter with Wölfli's art (and his life!) concluded a harmonic decade (1970-1980), in which my gaze had been directed towards a  cosmological-harmonic totality that was strongly based on the discovery of the ‘infinity series' (1959). After immersing myself in the multidimensional universe of the infinity series or the infinity tapestry, I experienced the encounter with Wölfli's chaotic art as a mental dive into a different, dark world – eerie, unpredictable, but fascinating and above all highly specific. That is, a 180-degree turn away from the preceding ‘light-period'!' (Per Nørgård in February 2007).

"Among the works written in connection with Wölfli were the choral work 'Wie ein Kind' (1980), the Fourth Symphony with the subtitle 'Indischer Roosen-Garten – Chineesischer Hexensee' (1981) and the opera 'The Divine Circus' (1982). Around the time of the opera the piece 'I Ching' for solo percussion also arose, and in certain passages it coincides with the opera; its fourth movement is identical with the virtuoso percussion prelude. In the opera percussion instruments generally play a leading role: besides a synthesizer and an electronically amplified cello the ‘orchestral' ensemble requires six percussionists. After the world premiere in Århus in 1983 the opera was performed in among other places Edinburgh and St. Gall. The German premiere took place in Lübeck in 2007, and this production was also shown in Bern. (Katharina Kost. From the liner notes.)

"As long as Orpheus sings for the god of the underworld, Tantalus forgets his cruel thirst, Sisyphus sits down on his boulder, the voracious bird abandons Prometheus' liver, and Ixion's wheel stands still. These harshly punished people's compulsive actions end for a while. The rulers of Hades are even so touched that they grant the singer an extraordinary honour: he can boast that he is the first to liberate a human being from the clutches of death with his music.

"Something similar happens to Adolf Wölfli, the protagonist of Per Nørgård's opera 'The Divine Circus'. When he finally begins to write and draw, the figures of insanity and memory within him and around him fall calm. Doufi, Saint Adolph and Saint Adolph II, Margritt, Mutti and all the ‘Vögeli' (the birds): those that have tormented and humiliated him before now turn out to be impressed and to look up to him. In both cases, it is the miracle of art that takes place.

"The unusual fate of the historical Adolf Wölfli has fascinated whole generations. As early as the beginning of the twentieth century artists were inspired by his grandiose oeuvre. At the beginning of the 1980s he became an operatic hero for a number of composers. Per Nørgård has dedicated a whole group of works to him. But much about this ‘operatic hero' is strange: a man who has molested little girls or at least intended to do so; a man who in his delusions of grandeur sought and found a sad replacement for a bungled life. Is that the kind of thing we want to see on an opera stage?

"In many respects Nørgård's opera is exceptional: even the ‘orchestral ensemble' (unusual even for a music drama work of the twentieth century) – six percussionists, synthesizer and electronically amplified cello – makes you literally prick up your ears. At first glance it seems confusing that the Wölfli figure is split into the four singers, and that the two female singers are constantly changing into different female figures.

"But precisely in terms of content the opera is anything but isolated within the music drama tradition. Despite the fact that Adolf Wölfli is a unique phenomenon, the figure is also closely related to many other figures of literary and theatrical history. And at the formal musical level too Nørgård again and again takes up themes familiar to us all. The subject, the attempt at child molestation, certainly pushes against the boundaries of certain taboos; but these only lie parallel to, not beyond our familiar boundaries. For about 200 years it has even been common to see murder on the opera stage. The opera's Wölfli thus shares his particular fate with many stage figures – they are all eccentric outsiders, ostracized from the community, but also gifted with special abilities.

"For several centuries insanity has had its place on the European stage. English Restoration drama had its mad scenes with their so-called 'mad songs', already to be found in all their facets, from the comic-grotesque to the tragic, in Shakespeare's plays. In the works of Handel or Donizetti the tradition is carried on. The motif can also be glimpsed in Georg Büchner's Woyzeck and Alban Berg's Wozzeck, where the title figure first hears voices and later commits a crime of passion: when the world is no longer bearable, especially when the existential themes of love and jealous play their part, life is invaded by madness.

"For the dramatist madness offers interesting opportunities to breach existing conventions, and to look for new, more direct forms of expression. In music theatre this usually already begins in the text: when Baroque opera heroes go mad with jealousy, the verses become disordered, strophes are omitted, rhymes are missing. Unfamiliar mixtures of recitative and aria, changing keys or music that begins to revolve obsessively around the same thought help to express how the hero is 'out of' his or her mind, as for example in Deianira's mad scene in Handel's 'Hercules' (1745), where the sentence 'Let me be mad' still recalls the old English tradition.

"In his opera 'The Divine Circus' Per Nørgård similarly uses musical devices to illustrate a worldview that deviates from the norm. And he too takes his point of departure in an ‘irregular' text with grammatical, spelling and semantic ‘errors' – the ones in Wölfli's original texts. Unlike the composer's earlier works, which arose on the basis of the fractal system of the ‘infinity series' or ‘infinity tapestry', 'The Divine Circus' in its musical shape transgresses the rules for long passages. Conventions are only important when associative quotations are interpolated, in parallel with a collage principle that is also found in Wölfli.

"In addition, the composer, through the hero's multiple characters, creates dramatic scope for himself, giving the real Adolf Wölfli three extra personalities (Doufi, Saint Adolph and Saint Adolph II) makes Wölfli's psychological universe a musical theatre in itself. Wölfli can sing duets, trios and quartets with himself. But all the things that only opera can do by means of ensemble singing serve to characterize the split personality: the musically shaped simultaneity of empathy, inconsistency, rebellion, resignation, defiant protest, fond interest and dissociation etc.

"But the representation of the deviant only becomes interesting because a truth thus arises that remains invisible when one is dealing with the ‘normal'. In this respect too Nørgård has had predecessors in his view of Wölfli, and not only in terms of the appreciation that Wölfli's art has received after World War II through Jean Dubuffet, who made his art famous as art brut; the interest shown by ‘rational' people in the odd and strange is considerably older. Madness/folly and genius/wisdom have long been regarded as closely related: we need only think of the jester who proclaims his wisdom to the highest ruler, or the ‘noble savage' who shows the European warped by civilization how the true natural mind works; perhaps too of the melancholy genius or the disturbedly visionary saint. They all have a long tradition of being splendid operatic characters.

"Much more generally speaking too, the figure of Wölfli is not unfamiliar from European drama. He can be interpreted as the hero who guiltlessly becomes guilty, that is as a tragic hero. True, Wölfli does not stumble, like the incestuous patricide Oedipus, the ‘primal father' in this genre, into fateful misconceptions. Instead of the curse of the gods, one finds in him a structure of instincts and the social rejection he suffered. But as with Oedipus his story evokes in the audience the two characteristic tragic emotions fear and pity: fear of his appalling improper advances to children, and pity in view of his huge love deficit, which has tormented him throughout life. In that respect too Wölfli recalls Woyzeck/Wozzeck, with his aggression that one can at first understand, but its results that nevertheless remain loathsome. In the case of Wölfli, though, it is doubtful how much of the guilt in his misfortunes can be ascribed to the individual and how much to society. It is indisputable that the young Adolf Wölfli suffers an extraordinarily sad fate as the child of a single mother who is dependent on public support and who must later, as an orphan, toil on the farms of strangers. In that sense he is someone who has strayed from the straight path, a brother of la tra-viata, the derailed victim of a society on its way towards becoming perfectly organized, where there is no place for marginal groups. At the same time Wölfli's reaction to his situation is extreme: susceptible and irritable, he turns his frustration outward as aggression and in that respect seems rather like some perverted Don Juan, attempting to compensate for his longing for human closeness and his inability to commit to another human being by way of momentary sexual contacts with casual partners. Thus it is perhaps no coincidence that, when Wölfli in Scene 5 of Act One ('Awakening in Heaven') reels off 'Young ones and old ones alike; rich ones and poor ones; white ones, black ones, red ones and brown ones', one is reminded of the reeling off of Don Giovanni's conquests by Leporello in his ‘list aria' in Mozart's opera: 'Young and old, rich and poor, white, black, red and brown'.

"When we see Wölfli's tragic aberrations, his hopelessness, his insanity and his social marginalization, his achievement can hardly be overestimated. Through his own strength he finds his way to art, bursts his chains and arrives at belated heroic qualities. This is where we must seek the difference between him and the operatic hero driven mad by unrequited love, the dying tragic hero and the heroine who languishes away in social misery: Nørgård's opera in fact describes not a path to perdition but the way that leads through catastrophe and past it to a life beyond madness, beyond tragedy and beyond social discrimination. True, it is not the furies of the underworld that Wölfli must exorcise with his art, but his own obsessions. In the finale of the opera, though, he does experience an elevation that approaches that of a mythical hero like Orpheus: while Orpheus assumes his eternal position as a constellation in the firmament, Wölfli triumphs in a final apotheosis over all internal and external opponents. At this point Nørgård surrenders the control of the music to Wölfli himself. With the final chorus 'Hallelujah, our God has gone mad!' to a melody attributed to Wölfli himself, he withdraws as a composer and mixes in with the crowd of admirers. (Katharina Kost. From the liner notes.)

"In his opera Per Nørgård paints a picture of the schizophrenic Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), who grew up in humiliating circumstances, was arrested for attempted rape and committed in 1895 as incurable mentally ill to the asylum at Waldau near Bern, where Wölfli began to produce a quantitatively and qualitatively overwhelming flood of writings and pictures, quite without therapeutic guidance. Over 25,000 pages he created an anti-universe that he called the 'St. Adolph Giant Creation', and which was to replace his failed life. He appears himself in this world, as among other characters the little boy Doufi and in delusions of grandeur as St. Adolph and St. Adolph II. Thanks to the attentive doctor Walter Morgenthaler, who published a book about Wölfli in 1921, the world was made aware of this ‘mad genius'. After World War II Jean Dubuffet made Wölfli's art world-famous as art brut. Today his pictures fetch large sums as works of art." (Synopsis from the liner notes.)

Performers: Stadttheater Bern, Dorian Keilhack, Andrea Stadel, Fabienne Jost, Daniel Szeili, Hubert Wild, Steffen Kubach, Bernd Gebhardt

1.1. Vorspiel

1.2. Prolog I: Ein Totschlag

1.3. Prolog II: So Silbern Tönt's

1.4. Prolog III: Gondellied

1.5. Akt I: Lobgesänge Mit Absturz

1.6. Akt I: Die Automatische Tantzplatte

1.7. Akt I: Des Luftschiffers Fall (Und Trost Des Hausarztes)

1.8. Akt I: Die Verwandlungen Der Lidia Wildermuth

1.9. Akt I: Erwachen Im Himmel (D'r Hund Zersprengt Seine Ketten)

1.10. Akt I: Katastrophe Mit Fall (Die Uhr Schlägt Zwölf)/'Wölfli - Der Unglücksfall Im Arrest' (Beginning)

2.1. Akt I: 'Wölfli - Der Unglücksfall Im Arrest' (Continued)

2.2. Akt I: Auferstehung

2.3. Akt II: Erschaffung - Ameisenfuge

2.4. Akt II: Fahrt Mit Dem Tram

2.5. Akt II: Ist Wohl Ein Unfall-Arzt Zur Stelle?

2.6. Akt II: Des Königs Kommentar

2.7. Akt II: 'Halleluja'/Schlusschor/Der Tanz Im Paradies

flac/16-bit

Muzio Clementi - Piano Sonatas Op. 9, 10, 11 & 12

"For many present-day music lovers the name Muzio Clementi probably evokes little but bittersweet memories of certain inevitable Sonatinas practised year in, year out, by virtually every beginner piano student in the Western world. The Sonatinas in question are those of Opus 36, composed expressly for the purpose for which they have proved so enduringly useful. But in his own day Clementi’s reputation was quite different; particularly during the period around 1785 to 1800 he was famous throughout Europe as a virtuoso performer, and a composer of music for piano on the cutting edge of musical style—to which the present set of recordings bears witness.

"Clementi was born in 1752 in Rome, where he received his earliest musical education. Then at the age of thirteen he moved to England, and made his home there for the remainder of his life, first as a teenager in Dorset, thereafter in London, and at the very end in Lichfield (Staffordshire) and Evesham (Worcestershire), where he died at the age of eighty in 1832. After about 1800 Clementi was one of the most prominent music teachers in London, and also very active as a music publisher and piano manufacturer; his firm, Clementi and Co. (with additional names reflecting the coming and going of various partners) operated at a London Cheapside address from 1798 until his retirement in 1830. In the summer of 1780 Clementi set off on a tour of the European continent that took him to Paris, where he remained for a year, and thereafter, via several German cities, to Vienna. After a four-month stay there he evidently spent some months teaching and playing in Lyon before returning to London. All of the music included in the present volume Clementi composed during or just prior to this trip, and some of it he clearly performed in the cities along the way.

"Clementi evidently composed the six sonatas of Opp. 9 and 10 in Vienna, where they were quickly put out by the local music publisher Artaria during or just after his stay in that city. All but one of these sonatas is in three movements, as was the fashion in Vienna; only the second sonata of Op. 10 (Maestoso—Presto) is in the two movement Italianate format of Clementi’s past. In these sonatas he shows a heightened interest in movements of the sonata-allegro type, the characteristic shape of first movements of all the composers of this period. The sonata-allegro structure stresses the development of a small amount of musical material and the interplay of stable and unstable tonal areas, a format that in Clementi’s time suggested a certain weight and seriousness. The formal principle of rondos, commonly used in finales, depends upon literal repetition and a juxtaposition of unlike materials associated with a kind of folk-like jollity. 

"Four out of the six finales in Opp. 9 and 10, like all the first movements, are cast in sonata-allegro form. And even the two rondos among them (the finales of Op. 9 Nos. 1 and 2) have a certain heft and gravity not often associated with the genre. The rondo-finale of Op. 9 No. 2 features a plangent minore episode cast in what eighteenth-century musicians called tempo rubato; that is, the melodic notes are systematically offset so as to fall on the off-beat—an effect that connoted sorrow or lamentation. 

"In one of the sonata-form finales—the lightning-like moto perpetuo of Op. 10 No. 1 in A major (a movement that retains distinct traces of Clementi’s Italian past and the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti)—the second half lingers long and quietly in the distant key of C sharp minor before bursting back into the brilliant A major of the foreshortened recapitulation. And in the sonata-allegro finale of Op. 10 No. 2 in D major, Clementi engages in the sort of restless formal experiment that marks a good deal of his music from this period. This movement has a ‘subdominant recapitulation’, in which the return in the second half of the piece occurs in the ‘wrong’ key, G major. (One can easily hear this when, towards the end of the movement, the ebullient opening theme, rising through a full two octaves, appears again but beginning at a surprisingly low pitch.) This stratagem, together with the readjustment of the tonal bearings it entails for the rest of the movement, reappears shortly after this time in the first movement of Mozart’s famous Sonata in C major K545.

"Clementi arrived in Vienna on Christmas Eve 1781. He barely had time to unpack his bags before he was summoned to perform that evening for the Emperor and his guests, the Grand Duke Paul and Duchess of Russia. What he was not told was that a local pianist of note, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was also invited, the idea being that the two should engage in a kind of piano-playing contest—which was a surprise to both musicians. Each improvised and performed compositions of his own, after which they played together on two pianos. Though no winner was declared, Mozart was later unremittingly critical of Clementi’s playing; shortly after that evening he wrote to his father: ‘Clementi plays well, so far as execution with the right hand goes. His greatest strength lies in his passages in thirds. Apart from this he has not a kreutzer’s worth of taste and feeling—in short he is simply a mechanicus.’ Eighteen months later, he added: ‘Supposing you do play sixths and octaves with the utmost velocity (which no one can do, not even Clementi) you only produce an atrocious chopping effect, and nothing else [...] he writes Presto over a sonata or even Prestissimo and Alla breve, and plays it himself Allegro and in 4/4 time. I know this is the case, for I have heard him do so.’ 

"One composition Clementi tells us he played at this contest was the Sonata in B flat major, Op. 24 No. 2, whose opening theme much resembles the beginning of Mozart’s later overture to 'The Magic Flute'. Another is his Toccata from Op. 11. The first and last sections of this piece feature long passages of those notoriously difficult parallel thirds, marked, true to Mozart’s characterization, Prestissimo, alla breve. This is a composition that belongs to what Clementi later referred to as his initial ‘virtuoso’ phase. We do not know what the Emperor or his Russian guests thought of this kind of technical wizardry, but Mozart was little impressed. At the time of the contest Clementi almost surely had available some of the more mature and expressive music of Opp. 7 and 8 (see volume 1 of this survey); it would be interesting to know how Mozart might have reacted to this.

"At least some movements of the four sonatas of Op. 12 were also finished by the time of the Viennese sojourn. Some of this music reverts to the triadic and ‘murky bass’ (i.e. broken-octave) accompanimental formulas that recall Clementi’s writing as early as Op. 2, and all but one of these sonatas again have rondos as final movements. The finale of the first sonata is a charming set of variations on ‘Je suis Lindor’, Antoine-Laurent Baudron’s setting of the romanze from Beaumarchais’ Barbier de Séville. Here ornamental runs of even semiquavers (sixteenthnotes) mix with Clementi’s well known specialities such as passages in thirds and broken octaves to produce a convincing result—such techniques somehow seem rather at home in variations. Mozart also wrote an unpretentious set of variations on this tune (K354); this time his composition (written in 1778) came first.

"Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the sonatas of Op. 12 are the slow movements. All four of them are deeply serious pieces that aim for depths of expression seldom encountered in the composer’s earlier music. Far-flung harmonies, including generous use of that favorite agent of harmonic obfuscation of the early nineteenth century, the diminished seventh chord, add to an impression of impassioned pathos. Sometimes all this emotion seems terse and controlled, as in the remarkably laconic Largo of the second sonata; or it can be given more space to play out as in the ambitious and eloquent (at points perhaps merging on the grandiloquent) Lento of the fourth. 

"In a retrospective statement of 1806 that reaches us through his student Ludwig Berger, Clementi seemed to acknowledge that Mozart’s excoriation of his early ‘virtuoso’ manner was not entirely unjust; according to Berger, Clementi recalled that ‘in his earlier period he had taken particular delight in brilliant feats of technical proficiency, especially in those passages in double notes that were not common before his time, and in improvised cadenzas. It was only later that he adopted a more melodic and noble style of performance.’ The slow movements of the Op. 12 sonatas are a good example of this ‘more melodic and noble style’." (Leon Platinga. From the liner notes.)

Performer: Howard Shelley

1.1. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 1: I. Allegro Assai

1.2. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 1: II. Larghetto

1.3. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 1: III. Rondo. Prestissimo

1.4. Piano Sonata In C Major, Op. 9 No. 2: I. Allegro Assai

1.5. Piano Sonata In C Major, Op. 9 No. 2: II. Lento

1.6. Piano Sonata In C Major, Op. 9 No. 2: III. Rondo. Allegro Spiritoso

1.7. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 3: I. Allegro Assai

1.8. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 3: II. Larghetto

1.9. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 3: III. Prestissimo

1.10. Piano Sonata In A Major, Op. 10. No. 1: I. Allegro Con Spirito

1.11. Piano Sonata In A Major, Op. 10. No. 1: II. Menuetto. Allegretto Con Moto - Trio

1.12. Piano Sonata In A Major, Op. 10. No. 1: III. Prestissimo

1.13. Piano Sonata In D Major, Op. 10 No. 2: I. Maestoso

1.14. Piano Sonata In D Major, Op. 10 No. 2: II. Presto

1.15. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 10. No. 3: I. Presto

1.16. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 10. No. 3: II. Andante Con Espressione

1.17. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 10. No. 3: III. Allegro Assai

2.1. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 11 No. 1: I. Allegro

2.2. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 11 No. 1: II. Larghetto Con Espressione

2.3. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 11 No. 1: III. Rondeau. Allegro Di Molto

2.4. Toccata In B-Flat Major, Op. 11 No. 2

2.5. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 12 No. 1: I. Presto

2.6. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 12 No. 1: II. Larghetto Con Espressione

2.7. Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major, Op. 12 No. 1: III. Lindor With Variations. Allegretto

2.8. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 12 No. 2: I. Presto

2.9. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 12 No. 2: II. Largo

2.10. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 12 No. 2: III. Rondo. Allegro Assai

2.11. Piano Sonata In F Major, Op. 12 No. 3: I. Allegro Di Molto

2.12. Piano Sonata In F Major, Op. 12 No. 3: II. Largo

2.13. Piano Sonata In F Major, Op. 12 No. 3: III. Rondeau. Allegro

2.14. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 12. No. 4: I. Allegro

2.15. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 12. No. 4: II. Lento

2.16. Piano Sonata In E-Flat Major, Op. 12. No. 4: III. Rondeau. Allegro Con Spirito

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Ajilvsga - Blood Flowers

Rare Ajilvsga CDr that came as a bonus with ten copies of the special 'art edition' LP of the duo's 'Red Crow' release. Another six copies were produced, but were circulated among personal friends of the artists. The sleeve is hand painted. Features the duo's distinctive organic, droning psych noise work; recorded between 2007 and 2008 and released the following year. 

 

1. Young Mother Corn

2. Burnt Offering

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Mutant Ape - Injections

Dense, cavernous rumblings and tortured echoed screeches characterise this 2008 tape from English noise/metal dungeon lurker George Proctor. Released on American label Enemata Productions and spanning thirty minutes over one side.

A1. Injections 1

A2. Injections 2

A3. Injections 3

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Ottorino Respighi - Fontane di Roma; Pini di Roma; Feste Romane

"Ottorino Respighi was among the generation of early twentieth-century composers who received a 'European' education. This began in his native city of Bologna, where he was a pupil of Giuseppe Martucci, one of the first champions of Wagner’s music in Italy. Respighi subsequently went to St. Petersburg, where he studied under Rimsky-Korsakov from 1900 until 1902 (Respighi himself admitted that the lessons were few in number, but never the less referred to them as 'very important') and then, after a period of working as a violinist and violist, to Berlin where he took lessons from Max Bruch in 1908–09.

"Our knowledge of Italian music from the early twentieth century is often confined to opera, which indeed became immensely popular all over the world. There was also an affinity for symphonic music in Italy, however – represented notably by Malipiero and Casella – demonstrating that Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy and Richard Strauss exerted an influence there as well. Respighi, who – despite composing nine operas – stood slightly apart from 'verismo', attempted to reconcile Italian musical traditions with the contemporary romantic, impressionist and neo-classical trends that were in fashion in other European countries.

"Today Respighi’s fame is based above all on the 'Roman trilogy' recorded here, even though he composed in every conceivable genre: opera, ballet (for in stance for Diaghilev's 'Ballets Russes'), concertos (including a 'Concerto Gregoriano' for violin and a 'Concerto in the Mixolydian Mode' for piano), chamber music, solo piano pieces and songs. Respighi also made numerous orchestral arrangements of music from the baroque period, including works by Bach, Monteverdi, Pergolesi and Frescobaldi. As an enthusiastic supporter of music from this period he also edited pieces by Vivaldi and Monteverdi.

"The three works in the 'Roman trilogy' – 'The Fountains of Rome', 'The Pines of Rome' and 'Roman Festivals' – might be termed symphonic poems, although we should not look for a literary programme or a musical representation of the kind found in the works of Richard Strauss, which were then very popular in Italy. In Respighi's case it is more a question of impressions and reflections associated with an event, a situation reminiscent of Claude Debussy in his 'Préludes' and 'Images'. Nonetheless the third part of the trilogy, 'Roman Festivals', abandons the evocatory aspect to some degree in favour of a portrayal that could be described as cinematographic in its immediacy. Indeed, the influence of Respighi can be felt in the music of composers who worked in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s.

"[...] With this work, Respighi wanted to conclude his production of orchestral music: 'With the present constitution of the orchestra it is impossible to achieve more, and I do not think I shall write any more scores of this kind. Now I am much more interested in small ensembles and the small orchestra.' He stood by his intention: in the remaining eight years of his life, his only orchestral scores were arrangements of works by baroque composers, including organ music by Bach." (Jean-Pascal Vachon. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, John Neschling

1. Fontane Di Roma: I. La Fontana Di Valle Giulia All'alba
2. Fontane Di Roma: II. La Fontana Del Tritone Al Mattino
3. Fontane Di Roma: III. La Fontana Di Trevi Al Meriggio
4. Fontane Di Roma: IV. La Fontana Di Villa Medici Al Tramonto
5. Pini Di Roma: I. I Pini Di Villa Borghese
6. Pini Di Roma: II. Pini Presso Una Catacomba
7. Pini Di Roma: III. I Pini Del Gianicolo
8. Pini Di Roma: IV. I Pini Della Via Appia
9. Feste Romane: I. Circenses
10. Feste Romane: II. Il Giubileo
11. Feste Romane: III. L'Ottobrata
12. Feste Romane: IV. La Befana

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Franz Schubert - Schwanengesang & Songs After Seidl

"In January 1829, a good two months after  Schubert's death, the Viennese music  publisher Tobias Haslinger, with whom  Schubert had worked very closely in the final  years of his life, placed an advertisement in  the Viennese press, in which he announced  Franz Schubert's 'Schwanen-Gesang, 14 Lieder', 'the final fruits of his noble power  [...], written in August 1828, shortly before  his decease.' Haslinger had obtained the  rights to the songs in December 1828  from Schubert's brother Ferdinand, who  had been handling the composer's estate,  and had given them the collective title of 'Schwanengesang'. In reality there were two groups of songs: seven songs on texts by Ludwig Rellstab and six on texts by Heinrich Heine. These two groups are contained in a common manuscript of August 1828 and are today collected together as 'Schwanengesang' (D. 957), along with a single Lied, 'Die Taubenpost', on a poem by his friend Gabriel Seidl (D. 965 A). The Lieder do not form a single cycle, for each group appears complete in itself. In the Heine group are collected together all the songs Schubert composed on poems by Heine; the same almost applies for the Rellstab group of Lieder: apart from the Lieder in 'Schwanengesang' the only Rellstab poems on which Schubert wrote songs were the large-scale song for voice, horn and piano 'Auf dem Strom' (D. 943), the strophic Lied 'Herbst' (D. 945), which survives as an album leaf for Heinrich Panofka, and the incomplete 'Lied Lebensmut'. 

"[...] Schubert came across Heine's poems — in particular the cycle 'Heimkehr in the Buch der Lieder', published in 1827 — in January 1828, in a volume in the library that his friend Franz von Schober had furnished for him. In the autumn of 1828 Schubert had bequeathed the volume to the singer Karl von Schonstein, who several years later stated that all the poems in the volume 'that had appeared in the Schwanengesang' were marked by 'Einbucie' - a sign that here too Schubert chose his texts carefully. In his manuscript the texts are in a different order from the one Heine had chosen for his cycle. Since then, several attempts have been made to restore to the songs to the order followed by Heine. However, since the composer chose only six of the 88 'Heimkehr' poems continuously numbered by the poet, there is no unity of content that has to be restored, so Schubert's ordering should be preserved, as is the case in this recording. 

"[...] The Viennese poet Gabriel Seidl, who was a friend of Schubert, was the source of a whole series of poetic texts that Schubert set to music between 1826 and 1828; some of these were solo Lieder, some were polyphonic songs. This is remarkable, since on 4 August 1828 - at about the time that he was working on one the Rellstab and Heine Lieder - Schubert wrote to the poet: 'Dear Herr Gabriel! [this unusual appellation, using the first name, shows that the two men were on a familiar footing] In this letter I am sending back these poems, in which I can discover nothing poetical or useful for music.' That this verdict applied only to the poems that had presumably had been sent directly to Schubert, and not to Seidl's poetry as a whole, can be seen from the fact that Schubert in the past sent his Seidl settings 'en bloc' to the publisher, in volumes containing only Lieder on texts by Seidl (Op. 80, 95, 105); one of these, Op. 95, was dedicated to the poet. This volume - a Lieder group to which Schubert or his publisher gave the title 'Refrain-Lieder' - plays a particular role in this: Thaddaus Weigl, the publisher, announced the Lieder in an advertisement: 'For a long time the public has cherished the wish to receive [from Schubert] a composition with cheerful, comic content.' This wish had been granted by the composer in the four songs, which are 'in part genuinely comical, in part bear the character of naivety and humour.' In fact the 'comic' Lieder are no. 1 ('Die Unterscheidung') and no. 3 ('Die Manner sind mechant!'), Lieder in which young girls mirror the conventions of society. On the contrary, the two Lieder recorded here are neither 'naive' nor 'humorous' - though both, like the two young girls' songs, are structured with a refrain, 'Bei dir allein' in no. 2 and 'dock gewiss ein Gluck' in no. 4. The groups of songs op. 105 and op. 80 document - as do many others - Schubert's predilection also for endowing a central thematic focus to songs already connected by assignment to a single poet. In op. 105 this theme is 'Sehnsucht' - longing - (indeed the title of the fourth song), which is caught within a contradiction - 'Widerspruch' - (the title of the first song in the group) between an internally directed and an externally directed longing. Thus the singer in 'Am Fenster' ('At the Window') turns to the 'lieben Mauern, hold and traut, die ihr mich kohl umschlielßt' ('you dear walls, sweet and trusted, that cool enclose me'), but then thinks 'Du Mauer wahnst mich trob wie einst, das ist die stille Freud; wenn du vom Mondlicht widerscheinst, wird mir die Brust so weit' ('You walls suppose me as cheerless as before - but this is a tranquil joy; when you shine from moonlight, my heart swells'). In contrast, op. 80 is a series of songs of a wanderer through the night. In the first song the singer (he actually does wander: a continual pacing rhythm moves him forwards) calls on the moon sailing through the endless sky to be his companion. The second song refers to 'Das Zügenglöcklein' ('The Passing Bell') (expressed by the piano in the incessantly struck octaves E flat' — E flat"), the death knell reconciling the 'glad pilgrim to the world' — as so often in Romanticism, 'night' is here a night of death. In the third song the Wanderer recognises at last whither the moon is leading him— it shines on 'the little hut' in which 'my beloved friend' is resting. The Wanderer scarcely moves in this song; he is rapt in the nocturnal vision, and the Piano evokes for us the shimmer of the stars and of the moon, and the trembling of his restless heart. 

"Of the Lieder that Schubert was still able to hand to the publisher himself in the second half of 1828, eight are from Seidl alone. As such, these too may be counted as part of Schubert's 'Schwanengesänge'." (Walther Dürr, tr. James Chater. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Christoph Prégardien, Andreas Staier

1. Herbst, D. 945
2. Schwanengesang, D. 957: I. Liebesbotschaft
3. Schwanengesang, D. 957: II. Kriegers Ahnung
4. Schwanengesang, D. 957: III. Frühlingssehnsucht
5. Schwanengesang, D. 957: IV. Ständchen
6. Schwanengesang, D. 957: V. Aufenthalt
7. Schwanengesang, D. 957: VI. In Der Ferne
8. Schwanengesang, D. 957: VII. Abschied
9. Schwanengesang, D. 957: VIII. Der Atlas
10. Schwanengesang, D. 957: IX. Ihr Bild
11. Schwanengesang, D. 957: X. Das Fischermädchen
12. Schwanengesang, D. 957: XI. Die Stadt
13. Schwanengesang, D. 957: XII. Am Meer
14. Schwanengesang, D. 957: XIII. Der Doppelgänger
15. Die Taubenpost, D. 965a
16. Sehnsucht, D. 879
17. Am Fenster, D. 878
18. Bei Dir Allein, D. 866
19. Der Wanderer An Den Mond, D. 870
20. Das Zügenglöcklein, D. 871
21. Im Freien, D. 880

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Ajilvsga - Three Heaps of Skulls

More from 2008 from Ajilvsga. Released on Philadelphia label Peasant Magik, which seems to have been inactive since 2012. Features heavy, natural sounding drone in their usual style with themes of conjuring pagan deities. Edition of 100.

A. Old God Wearing Deer Headress
B. Death God With Leg Terminating In Flower

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Ajilvsga - Last of the White Buffalo

Stunning psychedelic drone/noise from duo Brad Rose and Nathan Young. Released in 2008 at the peak of this project's run (it seems to be inactive now, sadly) on New York City-based experimental rock/folk/improv label Abandon Ship Records. The themes are deep, spiritual Americana with a focus on pagan rituals. The audio equivalent of an Alfred Jacob Miller painting. It is thick, heavy music with the perfect balance between noise and tone to create a hallowed natural sound.

A. Bloody Knife
B. Two Dead Buffalo

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Maurizio Bianchi - The Valley Of Deep Shadow

What Bianchi calls a "sacral sonorization for electro-spiritual keyboards, induced and regulated in the present theocratic year". While this high flown excess of verbiage could easily be interpreted as an industrial music cliché, there is without doubt an effect to Bianchi's music that is far, far more than its (often very simple) parts. It is a rare thing to find a man with such masterful control of sound and meaning in tandem. He has been active since the very genesis of industrial music in the late seventies, and still continues to shroud himself in a wonderful, much deserved mystique. This later release on his own label is a shadowy, ominous crawl through a sonic netherworld. The sound is comforting, mesmerising, hypnotising at the same time (just as the track titles display spiritual hope). A highly intriguing release from a true veteran.

1. The Shepherd
2. Resting Places
3. My Refreshed Soul
4. The Valley Of Deep Shadow
5. I Fear Nothing Bad
6. In Front Of The Hostility
7. Goodness And Loving Kindness
8. To The Length Of Days

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Francesco Cavalli - 5 Magnificat

"Cavalli’s career was not dazzling and he achieved celebrity and material comfort only gradually as he climbed the steps of one of the most prestigious musical institutions of the time: the cappella musicale of the Basilica of San Marco. In an essay written in 1931, Henry Prunières says: 'Without any great effort Cavalli created grand instrumental and vocal frescos which are unequalled, in an easy, always expressive idiom. No musician of his time
possesses Cavalli’s decorative sense of music.' 

"The Magnificat is the canticle sung by the Virgin Mary during her visit to Elizabeth (Luke 1:46-55) and has been set, in different styles, by many composers. Cavalli uses this canticle in five different compositions: 'Magnificat a sei voci', taken from the posthumous collection of 'Musiche sacre' [Sacred Works] by Claudio Monteverdi, printed in Venice in 1650. This composition, which presents the typical sectional structure of post-Monteverdi sacred music, is characterised by an airy lightness of weft in the style of 'concertato misto' and by variety in the handling of the music, with solos, duets, trios, some embellished, in the vocal line punctuated with terse 'tutti' passages of homo-rhythmic nature. 

"'Magnificat of the Vespro della Beata Vergine' (published 1675). As well as the Magnificat the Vespro also includes five psalms which remind one vaguely of Gregorian melodies with a lively, dramatic tone that accentuates the sense of prayer.

"'Magnificat of the Vespro delle Domeniche' (1675). In this we hear Cavalli’s new musical style which, albeit within its musical geometry, highlights the elements of quivering musicality, exalted by the effective chiaroscuro play of bichorality.

"'Magnificat of the Vespro delli Cinque Laudate' (1675). This Vesper reveals Cavalli’s liturgical orthodoxy and his talent for fanciful musicality, yet always concluded with simplicity.

"'Magnificat of the Musiche sacre' (Venice, 1656). The eight-voice Magnificat with instruments represents the style of the composer’s full maturity, seen in the use of the various compositional artifices of the baroque period: Choruses, arias, concertato passages (from duets to vocal octets), fugues and sinfonias develop and are woven into a solid formal structure. Evidence of the composer’s consummate skill is to be found in the consolidated use of double choirs reinforced by the introduction of a concertato instrumental group, spreading the compositional fabric over three sound levels. This composition, again, evinces the influence of the Recitar cantando with its search for sound effects in the declamation of each verse and their concatenation, from the expressive power of the beginning of the Magnificat, to the brilliant instrumental sinfonias, to the richly-embellished virtuoso concertato passages, to the surprising twelve-voice fugue on the verse 'Esurientes implevit bonis', to the brilliant finale with its wealth of sumptuous sounds." (Adolfo Bossi, tr. Timothy Alan Shaw. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Coro Claudio Monteverdi, Ensemble La Pifarescha, Bruno Gini

1. Magnificat A 7
2. Magnificat A 8
3. Canzona A 10
4. Magnificat A 8
5. Magnificat A 8
6. Magnificat A 8
7. Laetatus Sum A 3
8. Canzona A 12
9. Dixit Dominus A 8

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