What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Jacob Regnart: Missa Super Oeniades Nymphae - Cinquecento



I recently heard this on our excellent national classical radio station, looked it up and bought it.
Excellent! I do love polyphonic music, this is a wonderful example.

An English reviewer puts it like this:
Cinquecento are now well-established as a very good vocal ensemble. This was the disc which introduced me to them, and made me an instant fan. One of Cinquecento's aims is to bring more obscure Renaissance repertoire to wider attention and they succeed brilliantly with this disc. The music here is exclusively by Jacob Regnart - a composer I'd never heard of before but whose music turns out to be beautiful and very rewarding. There is a very fine mass setting and some really excellent motets here and the whole disc was a delightful revelation to me.

The group sing superbly. They are technically excellent and sing at a low pitch in the tradition of the Low Countries, with countertenors taking the top lines. This gives a very a full, resonant sound, emphasised by the resonant acoustic, while Hyperion's usual excellent recording standard means that every line is clear while blending to give a fabulous overall sound and the effect is truly lovely.

This has been a favourite disc of mine ever since I got it and I recommend it very warmly to anyone who likes Renaissance polyphony or if you just want a really rewarding, beautiful musical experience

I can only agree!

This is a wonderful album!

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by bart

This is a wonderful album!

You are on a roll Bart, it’s going to take me a week after I get home to catch up with all your interesting recommendations.

[eljr]

Originally Posted by bart

Jacob Regnart: Missa Super Oeniades Nymphae - Cinquecento



I recently heard this on our excellent national classical radio station, looked it up and bought it.
Excellent! I do love polyphonic music, this is a wonderful example.

An English reviewer puts it like this:
Cinquecento are now well-established as a very good vocal ensemble. This was the disc which introduced me to them, and made me an instant fan. One of Cinquecento's aims is to bring more obscure Renaissance repertoire to wider attention and they succeed brilliantly with this disc. The music here is exclusively by Jacob Regnart - a composer I'd never heard of before but whose music turns out to be beautiful and very rewarding. There is a very fine mass setting and some really excellent motets here and the whole disc was a delightful revelation to me.

The group sing superbly. They are technically excellent and sing at a low pitch in the tradition of the Low Countries, with countertenors taking the top lines. This gives a very a full, resonant sound, emphasised by the resonant acoustic, while Hyperion's usual excellent recording standard means that every line is clear while blending to give a fabulous overall sound and the effect is truly lovely.

This has been a favourite disc of mine ever since I got it and I recommend it very warmly to anyone who likes Renaissance polyphony or if you just want a really rewarding, beautiful musical experience

I can only agree!

I love Renaissance polyphony but I can't find this album on spotify

[eljr]

i did find this and m enjoying

[bart]

Venezia Stravagantissima
Capriccio Stravagante
Renaissance Orchestra, Skip Sempé
via Qobuz




Incerto, Mainerio, Guami, Vecchi, Picchi, Canale, Zanetti, Gabrieli are the composers.
The only one I knew was Gabrieli.
Nice discovery!

[bart]

Originally Posted by eljr

Streaming this album.

The Qobuz review gives a very good idea:

The essay in the program booklet for this release of Górecki's String Quartet No. 3 (...songs were sung), makes much of a supposed caesura in Górecki's creative output following the phenomenal success of Nonesuch's 1992 release of this Third Symphony, with soprano Dawn Upshaw, which elevated him practically to the level of a pop star. The essay implies that his meteoric rise to being one of the most famous and popular contemporary composers may have produced a creative crisis that caused him to wait until 2005 to finally deliver the score of his Third Quartet, which he had written in the winter of 1994-1995. In fact, Górecki's sudden notoriety seems to have had little effect on his creativity; between 1993 and 2004, he wrote 16 opus numbers.
The String Quartet No. 3 inhabits much the same musical and emotional universe as the composer's Third Symphony and the earlier string quartets -- an overwhelming sense of sadness followed by a cathartic peacefulness, created by the use of figural repetition; predominantly slow tempos, which are very occasionally punctuated by faster, often ironic, outbursts; the use of melancholy, folk-like melodies; and mildly dissonant minor key chorale-like textures that tend toward harmonic stasis. The five-movement quartet is constructed in a loose arch form, with material from the first movements repeated in the last movements and an ending that mirrors the beginning. The composer throws in enough surprises, such as a surprisingly stolid and romantic theme that appears in the third and fourth movements, to relieve the quartet's darkness. The response to the composer's Third Symphony will be a good indicator of the listener's appreciation of this quartet because it shares so many qualities with that work. The Kronos Quartet, which commissioned the piece, gives it a technically superlative and emotionally wrenching performance. Nonesuch's sound is intimate and warm, with excellent balance.

[eljr]

[DVass13]

Oliver Davis - Flight

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Bach - Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin BWV 1001-1006
Henryk Szeryng
Qobuz 24/96




First listen.
Seems like a top notch performance.
And good sound.
I have listened to these pieces so many times, and I'm still moved immensely each time I hear them.
I think I could not live without Bach...

Arguably the best solo violin pieces ever written.
These are very fine interpretations.
Playing proudly into the practice.

[bart]

Originally Posted by eljr

I love Renaissance polyphony but I can't find this album on spotify

I couldn't find it either, not on Qobuz, nor on Tidal.
CDs are still relevant!

I've put your suggestion into my folder of albums to play.