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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | 1612 - Italian Vespers
Following their recording of Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts from 1566, which racked up an astounding array of critical and commercial plaudits, Robert Hollingworth leads his maverick ensemble I Fagiolini on a new journey unearthing incredible lost works from the late Renaissance and early Baroque: 1612. The recording recreates a thanksgiving Vesper in commemoration of the famous Venetian naval victory at Lepanto in 1571, celebrated for over 200 years after the event in a new festival – The Feast of the Holy Rosary. The title 1612 represents a year of momentous events: the death of the master of the ‘Massive Baroque’ and most brilliant of Venetian multi-choir composers, Giovanni Gabrieli; and thereby the apex of the fashion of multi-choirs. 1612 also marks the publication of Viadana’s collection of 4-choir Vesper Psalms, with a layout considerably more forward-looking than Monteverdi’s psalms in his 1610 publication. 1612 presents the world premiere recordings of Viadana’s Vesper Psalms and Gabrieli’s 28-voice Magnificat, surrounded by lost treasures from the glorious period of multi-choir music. “Once summoned to prayer, I stayed on my knees happily for almost 80 minutes, fully absorbed in the latest baroque blockbuster from Robert Hollingworth’s ensemble I Fagiolini...Everywhere on this exciting disc we find bold voices atmospherically recorded, standing tall in towering blocks of sound or curling in polyphonic raptures” The Times, 15th June 2012 **** “The sound is sumptuous, the performances by I Fagiolini...utterly magnificent...the highlight is Hugh Keyte's reconstruction of Giovanni Gabrieli's electrifying 28-part Magnificat, complete with bells and fanfares, and his In ecclesiis, a sonic spectacular.” The Observer, 24th June 2012 “Hollingsworth seems inspired by the spirit of Tchaikovsky’s 1812, with his introduction of tolling bells, trumpet fanfares and cannon fire into the Magnificat, but it all sounds appropriate to the period when Monteverdi and his contemporaries brought a new sense of the spectacular to Italian religious music. A triumph!” Sunday Times, 1st July 2012 “As we might expect from this group, the best performances come in those pieces requiring spacious grandeur and a generalised awesome sound - the works by Viadana particularly benefit here...There's fine soprano singing in Laetatus sum by Viadana, and a lovely cornett instrumental introduction to Barbarino's Exaudi Deus.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2012 **** “Plainsong antiphons, psalms by Gabrieli’s contemporary Lodovico Viadana, together with pieces by Monteverdi and others contribute to the textural variety of these Vespers, sung and played with I Fagiolini’s typical vitality, freshness and immediacy.” The Telegraph, 20th July 2012 ***** “Hollingworth's sincere attention to detail is a much-needed breath of fresh air...[his] impeccable delivery of extra-special crunch moments provides plenty of points to knock your socks off...one can only relish I Fagiolini's gutsy soloists - none more so than the thrilling dialogue between high tenor Nicholas Mulroy and bass Greg Skidmore” Gramophone Magazine, September 2012 “First-rate scholarship from Keyte, a welcome return of the 'liturgical recreation' and a wonderfully uplifting and educational experience all round.” International Record Review, September 2012 “Among the most memorable musical events of last season was the New York Philharmonic’s performance of 20th-century spatial music in the Park Avenue Armory. With its recording of Italian vespers from 1612, the maverick English early-music ensemble I Fagiolini brings to life an earlier period of architectural music that reached its apogee 400 years ago” New York Times, 23rd November 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Striggio: Mass in 40 Parts (Missa Ecco si Beato Giorno)1CD+1DVD
DVD 1. Striggio – Ecce beatam lucem (5.1 Surround Sound) 2. Striggio – Missa ecco si beato giorni (5.1 Surround Sound) 3. Tallis – Spem in alium (5.1 Surround Sound) 4. The Making of Striggio – Documentary (English/ French/ German)
Celebrating the Rediscovery of a Long-lost Mass in 40 Parts. A feast of Renaissance choral music from Italy and England, the album (and bonus DVD) reveals a work by the Italian, Alessandro Striggio – believed lost until the recent discovery of vocal parts, in Paris. Striggio travelled extensively to the courts of Europe and it was probably a performance during his visit to Elizabethan England in 1567 that inspired Tallis to write Spem in alium, which is performed here with rarely heard instrumental accompaniment and the benefit of a major piece of textual change reinforcing the message of forgiveness. The DVD includes a short documentary about the rediscovery of the mass, as well as excerpts from the recording in 5.1 Surround Sound. I Fagiolini is an acclaimed British solo-voice ensemble specialising in Renaissance and Contemporary music. An inspired programmer, Robert Hollingworth founded the group in 1986. “There is nothing ordinary about a performance by I Fagiolini. These singers have made their reputation by turning their backs on convention” (The Guardian). “The instruments transfigure much of this music. They do the heavy lifting for some of the choir parts in the Mass and Ecce beatum lucem, contribute to the spacious sonorities, and add delicate moments of colour...Without instruments, the I Fagiolini voices can be tender and nuanced.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2011 **** “The ear is constantly taken by details in the elephantine crowd, a distant tenor laughing up a scale, an abrasive shawm doubling a choir's 'hosanna'...Tallis's Spem in Alium is performed with instruments, a legitimate and rare event.” Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 **** “I Fagiliolini seem to revel in the showy splendour of it all...Hollingworth has chosen his combination of voices and instruments with care...Worth hearing? Definitely.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2011 “So, what's all the fuss about? It all comes down to the three 'S's -size, sonority and seductive spirituality (maybe that's four)...one of the most ambitious and worthwhile Early Music projects for years. That it's a hit too can only be a good thing for all concerned. An important and outstanding release.” International Record Review, May 2011 “[I Fagiolini] do not perform Spem in Alium exactly as we are used to hearing it, for conductor Robert Hollingworth adds continuo to the voices there too, giving extra definition to the work's passing dissonances, which take it far beyond the sumptuous but bland harmonic world of Striggio's models.” The Guardian, 3rd March 2011 **** “Though Striggio's more formal Italian harmonic decorum precludes the kind of harmonic complexities that make Tallis's masterwork such a superb experience, it nonetheless inhabits a powerfully affecting landscape, and is arranged here for period orchestration featuring viols, cornetts, lutes and the like.” The Independent, 4th March 2011 **** “Beautifully performed by I Fagiolini with soloists and countless continuo parts, the polychoral effects are striking but harmonically not very interesting. Striggio's secular madrigals are more alluring, and at the end comes Tallis's more famous 40-part Spem in alium, done here with instruments, incomparably more subtle and moving, a masterpiece.” The Observer, 27th February 2011 “[The Striggio's] impact in this premiere recording by the voices and period instruments of I Fagiolini under Robert Hollingworth is terrific...Far from splurging his ample resources at once, Striggio juxtaposes passages of differing density, guided by the implications of the Mass text, to create a dramatic expanse in which the full effect of the 40 (or 60) voices is all the more powerful for having been kept in reserve.” The Telegraph, 6th March 2011 ***** “Decca’s engineers... did an excellent job balancing individual details against the total sound picture. Striggio’s music isn’t as richly textured as Tallis’s: no dissonant crunches, fewer soaring blasts. Yet you can still get hypnotised by the dappled flow of mellifluous chords, decorated with florid phrases winding round like honeysuckle.” The Times, 4th March 2011 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Monteverdi - Sweet Torment
'Whether in impassioned monologues or ecstatic ensemble pieces, I Fagiolini’s superbly responsive singing gives this collection of some of Monteverdi’s most vividly expressive madrigals a wonderful air of emotional spontaneity.' (Telegraph ‘CDs of the year’ on Vol.1.) 'This is a disc to be relished as much for its sudden contrasts as for the ensemble’s unfailingly spirited, idiomatic performances… In terms of expressive range, I Fagiolini is without equal' (Independent on Sunday on Vol.2) just two of the rapturous comments offered to the previous two volumes. In this third survey of their Monteverdi madrigals, I Fagiolini once again demonstrate the astonishing range of the composer’s secular art, leading us from the works of his early Mantuan maturity to the Baroque glories of his Venetian years, before returning us to the seconda pratica in Il Ballo dell’ Ingrate. By the time of Monteverdi’s Fifth and Sixth books, the madrigal, had acquired a new energy through the refreshed desire to move its listeners all the more strongly. In listening to a collection such as this, what most impresses and delights us is the sheer variety of Monteverdi’s expressive art. The two Petrarch settings from Book Six, for example, though relatively old-fashioned in their use of unaccompanied five-voice texture, show the most refined ear for the fluid emotional tenor of their texts. The two works from Book V make a pleasing parallel with these two Petrarch settings: T’amo, mia vita also makes play of the quasi-dramatic alternation between solo soprano and lower voices, and Questi vaghi concenti likewise pits the carefree joy of the natural world against the plaints of the lovesick poet. In the Eighth Book, the process of distinguishing and separating each successive affetto reaches a climax. Il Ballo delle Ingrate, published in the Eighth Book but written some thirty years previously, brings us full circle back to the Mantuan years and the birth of opera. Like Orfeo, Il Ballo delle Ingrate breathes an air of triumphant discovery, of fresh powers, of new worlds of expression opening up for the composer – worlds whose exploration would be his unique and ever-fascinating achievement. This series has offered I Fagiolini the opportunity to offer the listener contemporary passion and scholarship, and has achieved their ambition to challenge the accepted pre-eminence of the Italian groups. This is Monteverdi for both the 16th and 21st century. “The range of effects is startling: from the dazed idée fixe of "T'amo, mia vita!" (1605) to the bouyant ground bass of "Zefiro torna" (1632), here brilliantly animated by chitarrone, harp and harpsichord. Most exciting, however, is the group's reading of "Ballo delle Ingrate" and Barokksolistene's sullen dance for the damned.” The Independent on Sunday, 5th July 2009 “…the third in a series of Monteverdi madrigal anthologies…shows terrific musical discernment. The experience and flair of I Fagiolini is clearly demonstrated across these styles and textures. …the Baroque instrumentalists under violinist Bjarte Eike add much to the Ballo della Ingrate - the high plucked strings accompanying Amore are magical, and Plutone's magnificent bass singing is neatly supported.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2009 **** “…most successful… is the Ballo delle ingrate, one of the most coherent accounts of it I can remember, with a sharply delineated Pluto. The variety of continuo instruments is highly effective, and the work's dramatic line holds until the final, valedictory exhortation.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2009 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Flaming Heart seeks to show the full Monteverdi, a Monteverdi of both beauty and horror, colourful, vivid, and always completely alive. Unlike the ‘complete edition’ approach this series presents a much more imaginative selection of his works, beginning with the prologue from L’Orfeo and continuing with the very best of his works for a capella ensemble, soloists and strings. “some of the most exquisitely intense vocal music ever written” The Times | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Shakespeare: The Sonnets
1) Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore. Sonnet 60 2) Thou blind fool love. Sonnet 137 3) O, never say that I was false of heart. Sonnet 109 4) How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st. Sonnet 128 5) Shall I compare thee to summers day? Sonnet 18 6) Against that time - If ever that time come. Sonnet 49 7) No longer mourn for me when I am dead. Sonnet 71 8) Love is too young to know what conscience is. Sonnet 151 9) When I do count the clock that tells the time. Sonnet 12 10) Who will believe my verse in time to come. Sonnet 17 11) Those lines that I before have writ do lie. Sonnet 115
Erin Headley (lirone), Sam Goble (cornett), Gawain Glenton (cornett), Robert Hollingworth (virginals), Catherine Hollingworth (virginals), Lynda Sayce (theorbo), David Williams (theorbo), Robin Scott, Eliza Carthy and Megan Henwood, Anna Dennis (vocals) I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth Written during the time of Elizabeth I and re-imagined for the Diamond Jubilee year of Elizabeth II, these are the most precious words ever written about love. Performed on instruments from the early 17th century, played by the cream of the world’s period instrument specialists, conceived with immense passion, commitment and integrity, Shakespeare: The Sonnets was recorded in London over the last 6 months. Fresh from his success of recording an outsize Renaissance mass for a massive 40 parts that had not been heard for 400 years (and winning a Gramophone Album of the Year Award in the process), Robert Hollingworth, director of vocal ensemble I Fagiolini (also a judge on the UK’s Choir of the Year and involved in a number of films) was looking for a new challenge. To a specialist of the Renaissance period, Shakespeare’s sonnets are an intriguing challenge: the most romantic and personal poems ever written but rarely set to music. | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Monteverdi - Fire and Ashes
This second volume allows the listener to trace Monteverdi’s evolution from the early Mantuan a cappella madrigals that made his reputation to the late concerted madrigals of the 1630s written for the Viennese court. These styles seem worlds apart, yet both are forged by the same desire, to confront and master the tension between mere art and real life. “Under Robert Hollingworth's inspired direction, the five singers squeeze all the emotion possible out of the suspensions, both diatonic and chromatic.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2008 “…I Fagiolini are at their best in the quietly pastoral pieces. 'Rimanti in pace' is an early masterpiece from Book 3, sung with the tenderest of touches at the melting harmonies, and 'Lagrime d'amante'… is given the most persuasive performance I have heard...” BBC Music Magazine, April 2008 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | The Full MonteverdiA Film by John La Bouchardière
Anna Crooks (soprano), Pano Masti (actor), Carys Lane (soprano), Alan Mooney (actor), Clare Wilkinson (mezzo), Mark Denham (actor), Katharine Peachey (actress), Anna Skye (actress), Gina Peach (actress), Nicholas Mulroy (tenor), Matthew Brook (baritone) & Giles Underwood (bass) I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth The Full Monteverdi follows the simultaneous break-up of six couples from shocking revelation, vengeful anger and erotic longing for reconciliation, as an ensemble film. Vulnerable and disarming, it will draw you into its emotional journey and intensely moving portrait of contemporary love. Sung in Italian – optional English subtitles “John La Bouchardière who has taken these generalised, non-narrative musical expressions of love and tried to match them to a plot of his own devising. The whole thing is set mostly in a restaurant with various couples arguing, having affairs, and making up. The glorious music is sung with conviction, though I Fagiolini do have one or two tuning problems.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 **** “The first thing to say about this brilliant film is that it is extremely well sung. The second thing is that you need to be in pretty good emotional shape in order to enjoy, or perhaps I should say survive, the experience of watching it. What John Le Bouchardière has done is to use Monteverdi's Fourth Book of Madrigals as the vehicle for tracing the break-up in the relationships of six couples.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008 “Music-theatre hit of the decade … bleak but brilliant” The Times | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | A musical comedy
“…Vecchi's 1597 madrigal cycle… mixes slapstick scenes from the commedia dell'arte with lofty lovers' laments. …I Fagiolini… sing and act the cycle in a little stage such as 16th-century Venetians might have crowded round. …guffawing at the miserly merchant Pantalone, the caddish Captain Cardon, assorted servants and trollops, I simply didn't care - as I would have, listening without pictures - than canons of vocal decorum were being gleefully guyed. The singing's superb, anyway, as is the five-channel sound.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2004 **** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | The Madrigals in VenicePolitics, Dialogues & Pastorales
Gabrieli, A: | Del gran Tuonante la sorella e moglie Sassi, palae, sabbion, del Adrian lio Felici d'Adria e dilettose rive I'vo piangendo i miei passati tempi Asia felice hor ben posso chiamarmi O beltà rara, o santi modi adorni Laura soave, vita di mia vita O passi sparsi, o pensier vaghi e pronti Amami, vita mia, ch'io t'amo anchora Lasso, Amor mi trasporta ov'io non voglio Amami, vita mia, ch'io t'amo anchora Caro dolce ben mio, perche fuggire Hor ch'a noi torna la stagion novella Sento, sent'un rumor ch'al ciel si estolle Voi non volete, dona Io mi sento morire Mirami, vita mia, miram'un poco Mentr'io vi miro, vorrei pur sapere Chi'nde darà la bose al solfizar Ancor che col partire Fuor fuori a sì bel canto Dunque il comun poter | Gabrieli, G: | Canzon I 'La Spiritata' Sacri di Giove augei sacre Fenici |
“Andrea Gabrieli has always been something of a textbook composer, whose reputation falls under the shadow of his more famous nephew, Giovanni, the composer par excellence of the grand Venetian polychoral manner. Though Andrea's music may not plumb the depths of Giovanni's best pieces, his compositional range displays a versatility that the writing of his more considered relation surely lacks. Whereas Giovanni concentrated on liturgical composition, Andrea explored the gamut of contemporary styles and forms, from madrigals and lighter secular writing to dialect texts, church music, instrumental works, experimental theatre-pieces and music for Venetian festivities.
This imaginatively constructed disc, punctuated by instrumental items, presents as a main course a selection of Andrea's settings of Italian texts. These reveal an unexpected emotional complexity, robust and lively works being contrasted with more reflective ones. The former are characterised by an energetic rhythmic drive and bright sonorities in the upper registers, the latter by a mellifluous and sensitive approach.
There are also a few oddities, notably 'Asia felice', composed for an outdoor celebration of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 – suitably enlivened here with unscripted interventions of organ, sackbuts and cornets – and the boisterous rendition of the dialect text 'Chi'nde darà la bose al solfizar', which evocatively breathes the air of the streets and squares of Renaissance Venice.
Anyone smitten with the musical traditions of this most fascinating of all cities, shouldn't hesitate to buy this record.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | The Triumphs of OrianaMadrigals, compiled by Thomas Morley, 1601
Bennet: | All creatures now are merry-minded | Byrd: | Galliard (Hirsch No. 2) | Carlton, R: | Calm was the air and clear the sky | Cavendish: | Come, gentle swains and shepherds' dainty daughters | Cobbold: | With wreaths of rose and laurel | East, M: | Hence stars too dim of light | Farmer: | Fair Nymphs, I heard one telling | Gibbons, E: | Round about her charret, with all-admiring strains Long live fair Oriana | Hilton: | Fair Oriana, beauty's Queen | Holborne: | Fantasia No. 2 (Hirsch No. 46) Galliard (Hirsch No. 9) Galliard No. 8 'Jest' or 'Clark's Galliard' (Hirsch No. 15) Fantasia No. 3 (Hirsch No. 49) | Holmes, John: | Thus Bonny-boots the birthday celebrated | Hunt, T: | Hark! did ye ever hear so sweet a singing? | Johnson, E: | Come, blessed Bird | Jones, Robert: | Fair Oriana, seeming to wink at folly | Kirbye: | With angel's face and brightness | Lisley: | Fair Cytherea presents her doves | Marson: | The Nymphs and shepherds danced | Milton: | Fair Orian in the morn | Morley: | Arise, awake, awake Hard by a crystal fountain | Mundy, J: | Lightly she whipped o'er the dales | Nicholson, R: | Sing, shepherds all | Norcome: | With angel's face and brightness | Tomkins: | The Fauns and Satyrs tripping | Weelkes: | As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending | Wilbye: | The Lady Oriana |
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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Gramophone Magazine
Gramophone Awards 2011
