Joseph Bodin de Boismortier

London Baroque presents a disc charting the Trio Sonata in 18th-century France - a musical environment undergoing rapid changes following the death of Louis XIV in 1715.

In 1725 François Couperin published his Apothéose de Lulli, advocating a fusion of Italian and French styles, and the following year saw the collection Les Nations, which included L’Impériale recorded here.

Jean-Marie Leclair and his colleague (and great rival) Jean-Pierre Guignon took the idea one step further. Both were fêted violinists as well as composers, and wrote music mainly for their own instrument in an often virtuosic style.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier was not known as a performer, and composed a large number of small-scale works aimed at wealthy amateurs.

This recording is the sequel to The Attaignant Consort’s first disc – Madame d’amours (RAM 0706) – and the third and last in a series of three recordings presenting the art of the Renaissance flute, both as solo instrument (RAM1201) and as a consort instrument from the late fifteenth century until the middle of the seventeenth.

This disc places the accent on the musical transition of the seventeenth century, and shows how the consort of flutes adapted to the new styles of composition, which pushed it to the very limits of its possibilities. This recording illustrates the repertory for flute consort from its beginnings, including examples of the first instrumental fantasias, of airs de cour in four voices, a suite of English songs, bicinia, and finally French airs enriched with Baroque ornaments from the early eighteenth century.

Blu-ray Audio + CD

Grammy-nominated lutenist Ronn McFarlane is joined by flutist Mindy Rosenfeld to create the latest release from Sono Luminus, 'Nine Notes that Shook the World'. This release includes a surround-sound Blu-ray disc and a standard CD.

Explained by Mindy Rosenfeld, “This recording is a gathering of some of our favorites, a musical feast. A wide cross section of styles, both ‘folk and fyne’, evocative and expressive of the variety and intensity of human feelings, from sparky, joyful fun to deeper meditative inner reflection, these timeless tunes from past centuries still touch us in ways words cannot, stirring our life energy.”

Ronn McFarlane strives to bring the lute – the most popular instrument of the Renaissance – into today’s musical mainstream and make it accessible to a wider audience. Born in West Virginia, Ronn spent his early years in Maryland. At thirteen, upon hearing “Wipeout” by the Surfaris, he fell wildly in love with music and taught himself to play on a “cranky sixteen-dollar steel-string guitar.” Ronn kept at it, playing blues and rock music on the electric guitar while studying classical guitar. Recently, Ronn has been engaged in composing new music for the lute, building on the tradition of the lutenist/composers of past centuries. His original compositions are the focus of his solo CD, Indigo Road (DSL90701), which received a Grammy Award Nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album in 2009.

Fluent in the music of several eras, Mindy Rosenfeld is a founding member of the highly respected Baltimore Consort, with whom she tours extensively, and since 1989, of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (“the nation’s premier early music ensemble” - The New York Times), where she has performed under director Nicholas McGegan and guest conductors William Christie, Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Parrott, Andrew Manze, Bernard Labadie and Trevor Pinnock. As a colleague of Ronn McFarlane, she has performed in the trio 'Gut, Wind and Wire', and in the band Ayreheart. The mother of five boys, with a BM in Flute Performance from the Peabody Conservatory (Baltimore) and an MM in Modern and Baroque Flute Performance from San Francisco Conservatory, Mindy divides her time between performing, touring, teaching, dancing, her family, and their garden.

The Copenhagen Chamber Ensemble, founded in 1978, consists of a group of friends and alumni from the Copenhagen Choir School, who have each pursued careers as instrumentalists. The ensemble has performed across Europe, the USA and South America.

The disc features a selection of pieces by composers of the Baroque period, specially chosen by the ensemble. The relatively unknown Johan Helmich Roman was known during his lifetime as the Swedish Handel, and six movements from his Drottinholmmusiken appear on the disc, selected for their use of each of the ensemble’s instruments. Next is the spirited Sinfonia in A by Johann Adolf Scheibe, one of relatively few foreigners in Denmark at the time, who moved from Germany to work as Kapellmesiter for the Danish Opera. This is followed by a work of prolific composer Georg Philipp Telemann, whose reputation has struggled against the imposing presences of J.S. Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi, but whose compositions have enjoyed a renaissance in the 20th century. The majestic first movement of the Quintetto in G gives way to an animated second and brief third, followed by dance-like finale. Following this is J.B Boismortier’s Senate in E Op.24 No.3, with flute as the prominent instrument and the disc finishes with the great Antonio Vivaldi, whose lively Concerto No.6 in G RV107 provides a fitting end to the collection.

26 years ago, Hervé Niquet recalls having become so incensed with the disparaging remarks directed at French music and the 'Lamentations' of Jean Gilles' in particular' by a conductor of a choir in which he was then singing that Niquet vowed to set up his own ensemble and record the work – and demonstrate furthermore other beauties of music from his country (and beyond). And so Le Concert Spirituel was born, now celebrating its quarter century, its vocal and instrumental forces constantly delighting audiences with its joyous celebration of music from the 17th and 18th centuries (and now with Charles-Simon Catel’s Sémiramis, the dawn of the 19th). To mark the anniversary, Glossa is now issuing an attractively-priced double-disc celebration, with Niquet pulling out the stops from across Le Concert Spirituel’s broad and expansive range (and he started musical life as an organist, after all): Baroque sacred music, Marc-Antoine Charpentier assuredly; selections from Le Concert Spirituel’s “re-oxygenation”, as he calls it, of the tragédie lyrique (Grétry, Campra, Destouches), but also demonstrations of his own nimble-footed theatrical tendency (Niquet is an avowed fan of the musichall!) in Handel, Purcell and Striggio. Musical ostentation and bravura are concluded on each disc by some of Niquet’s own special bonnes bouches: Boismortier, D’Agincour, Marais and excerpts from his 'other' Charpentier (Gustave). All accompanied by a sparkling apéritif from the conductor himself about how Le Concert Spirituel came to reach its 25th anniversary!

These artists want the listener to pause, reflect and enjoy works and arrangements for two cellos by Boccherini, Flores, Albeniz, Rodriguez, Saint-Saëns and others. The instrumentalists indulge, laugh, whisper, argue and explode through these very varied works.