A Musical Picture - up to 25% off some great labels

Jean Absil doesn’t only have the honour of occupying the first pages of all musical dictionaries; he is also one of the most important Belgian composers of the 20th century. In the course of a long and prestigious career, which gave him access to the main European editors, he wrote works which brought him friendship and respect from composers as diverse as Florent Schmitt, Darius Milhaud or Béla Bartók. Sometimes harsh, often appealing, almost always polytonal and contrapuntal, his refined language earned him international recognition, halted by World War II but which truly took off afterwards. Daniel Blumenthal, in a world first, gives us his personal exploration of a fascinating and colourful piano repertoire.

Chiara Banchini celebrates Albinoni, the unknown elder of a new generation of venetian composers (Vivaldi, Marcello, Lotti…), the initiator of a new style, lively, colorful, combining structure and ornemental fantasy, related to venetian sensuality.

This Albinoni recording is included in the range of records made by Chiara Banchini all committed to the recognition by the audience of italian violonistic repertoires – essential to musical history of violin but not enough played and known : Corelli (rome; creator of sonatas da chiesa, da camera, Valentini (Corelli’s challenger in Roma : using the rules while breaking them), Geminiani (Corelli’s student and outstanding orchestrator), Tartini (theoretian of natural in music) and now Albinoni.

"Bucking the current fashion for hard-driven Vivaldi, Chiara Banchini and Ensemble 415 (all her pupils) deliver string concerto performances of airy delight. The focus is on the concerti for 4 violins from the ground-breaking set l’Estro Armonico. So many notes, interviewing; yet with Banchini’s team of soloists everything stays elegant, subtle and unclogged. The disc markes 10 years of excellent releases from this idiosyncratic French Label." Geoff Brown - The Times - UK August 2007

“What these performances have in greater measure than some e rival versions of L’estro armonico are a warmth of timbre - quite distinct from that of l’Arte dell’Arco for instance - and a spirit of intimate musicmaking. A rewarding disc; perhaps the remaining eight concertos of L’estro armonico will follow. Let’s hope so.” BBC Music Magazine - December 2007 - Nicolas Anderson

“Laurent Stewart - Behind this discret young man stands a very stylish musician...“ Renaud Machart - Le Monde

Willi Apel, one of the great twentieth-century experts on harpsichord music, declared: ‘With d’Anglebert, French keyboard music reaches its highest point of Baroque magnificence and fulness. His skill in continuing a melody, contrapuntally interweaving voices, concatenating harmonies by way of suspensions, and always using meaningful figures as ornaments brings to a final culmination and maturity what his teacher, Chambonnières, began . . .’

Laurent Stewart chose to record at la Salle Varèse du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Lyon, on his harpsichord copie of a Rückers 1638 « petit ravalement ». The sumptuous bass of this harpsichord underlines d’Anglebert’s music magnificently.

Laurent Stewart received outstanding reviews of his records made with the label Pierre Verany in the 90s : Louis Couperin Diapason d’or 1996, Gibbons/Byrd Diapason d’or 1995, Frescobaldi best record of 1994 by Le Monde. This very good harpsichordist, trained by Jos van Immerseel offered Zig-Zag Territoires to record d’Anglebert.

The elegant, keyless, cylindrical flute of the sixteenth century had a reedy, penetrating sound, closer to the cornetto than to any other wind instrument of the day. It had an impressive range of two and a half octaves and an evenness of tone quality that would not be matched again until the nineteenth century.

The pieces on this recording focus on repertoire for the renaissance flute consort, almost all of which was originally vocal music.

Members of Mezzaluna plays on copies of the most complete group of surviving Renaissance recorders which today are to be found in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum.